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GOVERNMENT OP INDIA
ARCHEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA.

CENTRAL

ARCHEOLOGICAL

LI BRAR Y

ACCESSION NO._ U<^0’yh

CALL No_ XU6 I /k,

D.G.A. 79,

The JCiss Sacred and Vrofane

The Tiss
<5 acred and
Trofane

NICOLAS JAMES PERELLA

Jin Interpretative History of
Kiss Symholism
and Related
Religio -Erotic Themes

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
'Berkeley and Los Angeles 1969

University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd., London, England
Copyright © 1969 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number; y^-8y2g2
Designed by Dave Comstock
Printed in the United States of America
SBN y 20-01392-1

AL AHCH AF.OLUCiK-*^. I
UBRAHYr NtW
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Tor Vivian

JLcknowledgments

n part the research for this study was made possible by
grants from the American Philosophical Society and The
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

My thanks go out to all those who have contributed to this
study in one way or another. They include Professors Louise G. Clubb,
Gustavo Costa, John Polt, and Ruggero Stefanini. A particular sense
of gratitude and obligation is felt toward Professors Charles S. Single-
ton, who first brought me to experience the richness of Dante and the
Middle Ages, Arnolfo B. Ferruolo, who first brought the Italian Renais-
sance to life for me, Catherine Fehrer, who first introduced me to
French literature, and Enrico de' Negri, who, after reading the first
draft of my work, made suggestions which I consider invaluable.

I am pleased to acknowledge a debt to Mrs. Margaret D. Uridge
and Mrs. Jeannot H. Nyles of the Interlibrary Borrowing Service of the
University of California in Berkeley. A special thanks must go to Miss
Karin Gerstung who carried out — with unfailing good humor — the
seemingly impossible task of producing a typescript from my manu-
script, to Mrs. Muriel Kittel for her able assistance in preparing the
translations and index and in proofreading, and to Mrs. Diane Beck of
the University Press for her many kindnesses during the editorial pro-
cess. My greatest debt is to my wife, to whom this book is dedicated.

Contents

Introduction ^ ^ ^ ^

4 -

•b

■b

1. The Early Christian Centuries

-b

■b

2 . Medieval Mystics .j, 4 , .i.

■b

3. The Medieval Love Lyric -t

4 -

■b

4. Medieval Love Legends ^ ^

•b

■b

124

5. The Renaissance Neoplatonic Phase

•b

158

6 . The Renaissance-Baroque Age

•b

■b

189

Epilogue ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ -i.

•b

244

Appendix I. The Dove, the Kiss, and the Trinity ^ 253

Appendix II. Christian Elements and the Kiss

Motif in the Troubadour Lyric ^ ^ 260

Notes 271

A Selective Bibliography ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 345

Index 349

Illustrations follow page ii6

Just so may love, although 'tis understood
The mere commingling of passionate breath,

Produce more than our searching witnesseth:

What I know not: but who, of men, can tell

That flowers would bloom, or that green fruit would swell

T 0 melting pidp, that fish would have bright mail,

The earth its dower of river, wood, and vale.

The meadows runnels, runnels pebblestones.

The seed its harvest, or the lute its tones.

Tones ravishment, or ravishment its sweet.

If human souls did never kiss and greet.

John Keats, Endymion, I, 832-842

IniroducHon

ove's wealthy croppe of kisses" (to borrow a line from
Ben Jonson) is far too great to be harvested and winnowed
by a single toiler in that rich field. Hence the present work
is not a treatise on the varieties of the genus kiss through
the ages and in different climes, but rather an essay on some aspects
of the use of the kiss as a religio-erotic symbol in the West.^ But
even this limited purpose requires that at the outset we at least
touch on the difficult question of origins. Anthropologists, physi-
ologists, and psychologists who have concerned themselves with the
problem have put forth the theory that the kiss may very well be a
vestigial remainder or a carry-over of a primitive habit of eating and
thereby assimilating into the self any object felt to be "good" or de-
sirable. If this is so, then it is all the more curious and significant that
the labial kiss, which is so much taken for granted in Western societies,
is not at all a universally practiced custom, for it was unknown to the
majority of primitive peoples as well as to large segments of Asiatic
cultures until introduced into them by Westerners. In 1897 the French
anthropologist Paul d'Enjoy pointed out that the Chinese felt a kind
of horror, as at some cannibalistic act, when confronted with the
Western custom of mouth-to-mouth kissing. It was d'Enjoy's view
that the basic elements or activities connected with the European kiss
are biting and sucking.^ This relationship seems to have occurred to
Sigmund Freud, who apparently, however, did not suspect its full an-
thropophagous implications. Discussing the preliminary and excitatory
sexual activities, he wrote: "The kiss between the mucous membrane
of the lips of two people is held in high esteem among many nations,
in spite of the fact that the parts of the body involved do not form part
of the sexual apparatus but constitute the entrance to the digestive
tract."® From such an observation one is inclined to think that Freud
himself found the erotic kiss somewhat distasteful.

Without doubt the senses that are brought into active play during
the kiss point to a connection with eating. When Havelock Ellis noted
that "manifestations resembling the kiss, whether with the object of
expressing affection or sexual emotion, are found among various ani-

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

mals much lower than man" (from snails to birds and dogs), he af-
firmed that "as practiced by man, the kiss involves mainly either the
sense of touch or that of smell."^ On the link between the tactile kiss
and eating, Ellis quoted the Italian psychologist Mantegazza to the
effect that "the affectionate child not only applies inanimate objects
to its lips or tongue, but of its own impulse licks the people it likes."
But it is not possible to accept his view that "there seems little evidence
to show that the kiss contains any gustatory element in the strict
sense." For one thing, such an assertion betrays an utter disregard for
or skepticism toward the testimony of love poetry since the time of the
Song of Songs and earlier. The innumerable references of poets to
taste imagery (the most common allusion is to honey, which is both
sweet and nutritious) in the matter of their ladies' kisses constitute an
eloquent proof, even after we have made allowances for poetic fancy
and the fact that the tactile sensations involved in lovers' kisses are
sometimes overwhelming in themselves. Where the gustatory sensa-
tions are more apt to be in evidence is in the passionate buccolingual
kiss in which the tongue plays an active part. In the Song of Songs
(4:11) we read: "Thy lips drip as the honeycomb, my spouse: / Honey
and milk are under thy tongue."

Long before the Song, in a Babylonian hymn (c. 1600 b.c.) inviting
devotees to join in the praise of Ishtar, there occurs the theme of honey
or sweetness on the lips, and, of even more significance, the idea that
life itself resides in the mouth of this most august of goddesses, who
is referred to also as the queen of heaven or of the gods:

Praise the goddess, the most awesome of the goddesses.

Ishtar is clothed with pleasure and love.

She is laden with vitality, charm, and voluptuousness.

In lips she is sweet; life is in her mouth.®

The deep-rooted biological association between the kiss and eating
was confirmed by Robert Briffault. In his monumental work The
Mothers, he observes that "among the ancient Egyptians the word
which is translated by Egyptologists as 'to kiss' meant 'to eat,' " and
he suggests that "the desire expressed by lovers to 'eat' the object of
their affection probably contains more sinister biological reminiscences
than they are aware."® Corroboration of the ideas of d'Enjoy and
Briffault is to be found in the observations made by Bronislaw Mali-

INTRODUCTION

nowski concerning the natives of North-Western Melanesia. Malinow-
ski notes that although the kiss (European style) is not used in Tro-
briand lovemaking as preliminary erotic play, there is very active
mouth play. Besides nose-rubbing there is mouth-rubbing. "Gradually
the caress becomes more passionate, and then the mouth is predomin-
ately active; the tongue is sucked, and tongue is rubbed against tongue;
they [the lovers] suck each other's lower lips, and the lips will be
bitten till blood comes; the saliva is allowed to flow from mouth to
mouth. ... In the formulae of love magic, which here as elsewhere
abound in over-graphic exaggeration, the expressions, 'drink my blood'
and 'pull my hair' are frequently used."^

Support for the views of the anthropologists can be had from what
may at first seem an unlikely or rather a surprising source. In the sev-
enteenth century, the influential French bishop of Meaux, Jacques
Benigne Bossuet, writing of the Eucharistic communion in which the
Christian believer "eats" of the Body of Jesus Christ, went as far as
one can go in equating the act of loving, sexually or spiritually, with
the desire to eat and incorporate the beloved;

In the ecstasy of human love, who is unaware that we eat and devour
each other, that we long to become part of each other in every way,
and, as the poet said, to carry off even with our teeth the thing we
love in order to possess it, feed upon it, become one with it, live on it?
That which is frenzy, that which is impotence in corporeal love is
truth, is wisdom in the love of Jesus: "Take, eat, this is my body":
devour, swallow up not a part, not a piece but the whole.®

The fact that Bossuet maintains that the effort of human lovers to
effect a corporeal assimilation of one another is hopeless does not keep
him from considering that their desire to do so is real.

But the poet referred to by Bossuet is, if I am not mistaken,
Lucretius; and it is worthwhile to recall the passage to which the French
bishop seems to have been alluding. In his De rerum natura (IV, I-073-
ai2o) where the Roman poet vividly depicted the rage of lovers during
copulation, he first noted that in eating, one takes in and assimilates a
desired object, an act which brings appeasement. In the sexual embrace,
on the other hand, lovers can only make a grotesque and vain effort at
such incorporation. The striving, interlaced bodies and the joining
of mouths, the furious mixture of saliva and the biting of lips, all this
is as futile as it is indecorous.® Yet it is a fact that what Lucretius de-

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

dared to be an impossibility and a madness, many lovers have daimed
to know by experience and have praised as the highest bliss — the sen-
sation of a union or merging of two into one, a subject of which this
study will have much to say.

Perhaps the view that contrasts most dramatically with Lucretius'
picture is to be found in the blissful calm of the enlaced and kissing
mithima couples of Indian temples. Concerning such mithunas of the
temples of Khajuraho and Konaraka, Radhakamal Mukerjee writes as
follows: "In the most ardent kiss there are not only mutual psycho-
logical rapport and exchange which Vatsyayana [author of the Kama-
sutra] commended as the soul and art of love, but there are also detach-
ment and poise symbolised by the closure of eye-lids or the omission
of eye-balls and the serene inflection of the intertwined bodies of the
lovers."^® The lovers of these Indian sculptures are often meant to
recall and sometimes to represent directly the archetypal gods Shiva
and Shakti, the separated male and female principles of an original
primordial Absolute and Unity; their embrace and kiss indicate the
need and the effecting of their reintegration. A famous relief of an
embracing and kissing couple of the rock-cut temple of Kailasa at
Elura (eighth century a.d.) depicts just such a reintegration or con-
junction of opposites in the figures of Shiva and Shakti (Fig. i).

We may also note here that there is in the mystical Sahajija cult
a ritual in which, at the stage of mystic meditation [dhyana), the dis-
ciple kisses a woman sitting on his left, "in such a way that the spirit
is inbreathed," as the text says, according to Mircea Eliade.'* (The dis-
ciple, of course, must seek to reunite the principles of opposites in him-
self.) The concept of breath plays a great part in Indian philosophy,
and given the fact that among the contrasting pairs that have to be
reintegrated are the two "breaths" prana and apana, the kiss that Shiva
and Shakti exchange (as in the Elura temple which embodies Tantric
Hinduism) is of cosmic and "spiritual" import.

Thus the kiss — especially when, as in much Indian iconography, it
implies the intermingling of breaths — is at the same time more than
"the mere commingling of passionate breath"; it is indeed a dramatic
symbol of a reintegration, of a transcending of dualism. Its principal
effect or felt value is then fusional. It is true that this idea of a fusion
or union of two in one is also symbolized or even ritualized by sexual
union, as is suggested even in Genesis 2:24 and reaffirmed by Jesus in
Matthew 19:5 ("And the two will become one flesh"). The kiss, how-

INTRODUCTION

ever, has the advantage — whatever its origins — of expressing the con-
cept with or without erotic overtones and, in either case, of doing so
spiritually. This is owing to the unique value associated with the idea
of breath. Without doubt, water, wine, blood, and the phallus (with its
seed) are great and pervasive symbols of the life force which is felt as
deriving ultimately from the deity. But equally, if not more, basic and
pervasive than these is the idea of breath or spirit (pneuma), which is
the reality most immediately connected with the idea of biological and
"spiritual" life. It is also the notion that lends itself most readily to
the concept of the possibility of communion and union between two
human creatures as well as between man and the source of life. Perhaps
more than any of the other great symbols and realities of life, it has
figured prominently not only in purely religious thought and cere-
mony, but in philosophical speculation as well. Besides the importance
of breath in Indian speculation, one need only think of the Stoic con-
cept of the World Soul, anima mundi, and of the Holy Breath that is
one of the Persons and trait d'union, the very osculant, as we shall see,
of the Christian Triune God. Here we may also recall the biblical nar-
ration (Gen. 2:7) of the creation of man by a God who infused the
spirit of life into his creature by breathing into him. A twelfth century
mosaic in the splendid cathedral at Monreale — some five miles from
the heart of Palermo — portrays the Creator infusing the life-spirit into
man by way of the mouth. Though the figures are not touching one
another, the line indicating the transmitting of the spirit goes from
mouth to mouth (Fig. 3).'^ Or we may think of the passage from
Virgil's Aeneid (VI, ii ff.) where it is said of the sibyl that the god
Apollo "breathed into her a great mind and soul." And in the Sym-
posium (179) Plato speaks of "that courage which, as Homer says, the
god breathes into the souls of some heroes. Love of his own nature
infuses into the lover." At this point, then, we are led to consider with
sympathy that theory which holds that the kiss has its origins in the
magical idea of the infusion of a power or the exchange or union of
"spirits" or "souls" carried by or even identified with breath and,
sometimes, with saliva. This theory would fit both the mouth-to-mouth
kiss and the "nose-kiss" (or "sniff-kiss"), if we may be allowed to
speak of the latter as a kiss. Such a theory does not necessarily exclude
all anthropophagous associations.

Long ago the German experimental psychologist Wilhelm Wundt
made the connection between the ceremony of the bond of brother-

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

hood through the mingling of two men's blood, and that of a kiss by
which spittle or breath, as transmitters of the life-force or the blood-
soul, is exchanged and mixed. At the same time Wundt suggested that
the kiss between man and woman might have its origin in the idea
that an exchange or mixture of breath (i.e., breath-soul) played a role
in the act of procreation.^® In support of this theory, he pointed to a
pre-Columbian Mexican picture illustrating the copulation of a pair
of deities or the first human couple. The two figures, facing one an-
other, are kneeling each on one leg with the other leg extended so that
contact is made by their feet. Each holds one arm akimbo while the one
holds the other's second arm by the wrist. But the most striking feature
of the scene is the way the couple is joined mouth to mouth by what
is evidently a breath symbol which is red-colored, perhaps in token of
the old idea of the blood-soul. This is clearly indicative of a "kiss" by
which the pair intermingle their life-forces or souls (Fig. 2).^^ Some-
thing similar may be observed in a fragment of a Phoenician clay tablet
in Madrid. Here a human couple stand facing one another in what is
surely a copulation scene despite the fact that the two are covered from
the waist down. The sperm of the man issues in a spiral as an extension
of the penis and makes contact with the woman. It is shown being
nourished by the milk spurting from the woman's uncovered bosom.
As in the pre-Columbian picture, here too a breath symbol (though
saliva could be intended) joins the couple mouth to mouth, suggesting
the intermingling of the pair in a kiss that figures also as part of the
procreational process.^®

When, in his study The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of
the Dead, James Frazer adduced proof for the idea of the soul as a
breath among the Maoris of New Zealand, he drew upon an early
nineteenth century account of a French traveler who sought an ex-
planation for the Maori form of salutation of rubbing noses together.
"The French traveller," wrote Frazer, "was told that the real intention
of this salute was to mingle the breath and thereby the souls of the
persons who gave each other this token of friendship."^® At the turn
of the present century, this same French traveler was referred to by
Christopher Nyrop, who made the following comment in connection
with the 'nose-kiss" as practiced among the natives of Madagascar:

It always excites the merriment of Europeans, and yet it has its origin
in an extremely refined idea. The invisible air which is continually
being breathed through the lips is to savages, not only, as with us, a

INTRODUCTION

sign of life, but it is also an emanation of the soul — its perfume, as they
themselves say — and, when they mingle and suck in each other's
breath and odour, they think they are actually mingling their souls."^’^
It is curious, I think, that Nyrop should have thought this to be an idea
peculiar to savages, although he recognized it to be a “refined idea,"
for the idea that souls can migrate or mingle in a kiss has a long and
distinguished history in the literature of the West. Indeed, to judge
from its antiquity and its popularity down to our own times, the erotic
conceit of the soul-in-the-kiss, or the fusion of two in one in a kiss,
must be considered one of the greatest commonplaces of amatory liter-
ature. Like so many of the philosophico-literary and religio-erotic con-
ceits in our culture, this too may be found in that fountainhead of
Western civilization, Plato, although it would be sought for in vain
among his philosophical writings. Rather it occurs in a distich, attrib-
uted to the philosopher, that has come down to us in the Creek An-
thology (V, 78) and in Diogenes Laertius' Lives. It goes like this:

My soul was on my lips as I was kissing Agathon.

Poor soul ! she came hoping to cross over to him.^®

This engaging image has not gone completely unnoticed by schol-
ars. In 1924 it was taken up by Stephen Gaselee, an eminent student
of classical literature, in a short article which traced its fortune well in
pagan antiquity, but beyond that became sketchy and failed to see the
true extent and importance of the conceit.*® Although Gaselee's study
dispenses us from tracing the soul-in-the-kiss conceit in pagan an-
tiquity (chiefly Greek), it will be well to record here the chief examples
that figure in his article. Following the Platonic epigram, the earliest
and perhaps one of the most significant uses of the conceit occurs in
Bion's Lament for Adonis (I, 45). Gaselee's owm version reads:

Adonis, wake and give
Me one last kiss
Long as a kiss may live.

Until in this
Kissing, thy spirit do
From body part.

And breathed be unto
My lips and heart.

This I think one of the most important early examples of the image
because it was to be echoed by Renaissance poets in similar scenes.

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Another interesting feature of it is that, despite its erotic overtones,
the conceit as it appears here seems related to a primitive idea that it
is possible for a survivor to catch up the departing life-spirit or soul
of a dying relative by a kiss. This custom was known to the Romans.^®
To return to Gaselee's examples of the kiss conceit, worth quoting
is the one by Dio Chrysostom's pupil, the philosopher Favorinus of
Arles (c. a.d. 85-150). The source is a fragment reproduced by the
grammarian Stobaeus: "At what else does that touching of lips aim
but at a junction of souls? They would out-pass the body, if they could,
and, as it is, they seem to strain earnestly at the bodily barrier as at a
door." Here, I believe, one can catch a Lucretian echo. Gaselee's other
references to Greek writers are to Meleager of Gadara (first century
B.c.) in the Anthologia Palatina, V, 171; Achilles Tatius (end of the
third century a.d.); and Aristaenetus (fourth century a.d.). Examples
from Latin literature, namely, Petronius and Aulus Gellius, will be
given later in the course of this study. Of the twenty-five examples
given by Gaselee in all, only seven are from the Renaissance period:
a brief epigram by Robert Herrick in imitation of the original Platonic
distich; a fleeting reminiscence of the conceit in John Donne's verse
epistle "To Sir Henry Wotton, Knight"; the famous exclamation of
Christopher Marlowe's Faustus to the vision of Helen; two Latin
poems by the fifteenth century poet-humanists Giovanni Pontano and
Angelo Poliziano; and a poem by Voiture. The seventh, for which no
source is given, is a Latin quote said by Gaselee to be by the "famous
Renaissance physician Balthasar Castilio [sic]": "Animus conjungitur
et spiritus etiam noster per osculum effluit; alternatim se in utriusque
corpus infundentes commiscent: animae potius quam corporis con-
nexio."^ Gaselee's attribution represents a curious error indeed, for this
passage is nothing less than a Latin translation or paraphrase of a part
of a famous page from one of the best-known works of the Renais-
sance, Baldassare Castiglione's Book of the Courtier. The passage ap-
pears, exactly as Gaselee quoted it, in the marginal notes of another
famous Renaissance work, Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melan-
choly, where Castiglione's name is indeed written as Balthasar Cas-
tilio.®* The ten or so modern examples of the image supplied by Gaselee
are randomly culled and range from Shelley's imitation of Plato's epi-

^ "The breath is joined and even our spirit flows out through the kiss; they
mingle together, pouring into one another's bodies in turn: it is a joining more of
the soul than of the body."

INTRODUCTION

gram to a passage from the novelist John Galsworthy. In short, Gase-
lee's article was meant as a series of marginal annotations on the
Platonic distich, so that E. R. Curtius' statement that it traces the in-
fluence and the imitations of Plato's epigram through world literature
is somewhat misleading.^^

Besides Gaselee's brief study, the only other significant notice
given to the Platonic epigram as such, as far as I know, is to be found
in two scholarly books by James Hutton dealing with the influence of
the Creek Anthology in France and Italy down to the year 1800.^® But
even Hutton's listings of examples of the image, which are themselves
quite limited, include several cases of mere mention or translation of
the original epigram or one of its early imitations; they do not give a
just or critical appraisal of the scope and significance of the conceit in
European literature. Here it should be pointed out that the Platonic
epigram did not come to play an important role in the diffusion of the
soul-kiss image until the Renaissance period. Until then the image, as
we will be tracing it through the centuries, owed nothing to Plato's
distich, which, for all its importance and antiquity, cannot be referred
to as the ultimate source of the soul-in-the-kiss conceit. Hence, the
chief shortcoming of the studies by Gaselee and Hutton, from our
point of view, is the total absence of any mention whatsoever of early
and medieval Christian literature as well as of the medieval romance
and lyric; but even more surprising is their failure to note the image
in the writings of the Renaissance Neoplatonists. Yet it is in these areas
(and in the Renaissance poets) that the richest development — the "his-
tory," we may say — of the image is to be noted. A major, though not
the sole, purpose of the present study is to follow the employment of
the image from early Christianity through the Renaissance writers,
giving attention to the contexts — sacred and profane — in which the
conceit is used, the function it is made to serve, and the modifications
it undergoes. I have given some consideration to a few other amatory
conceits which tended to accompany and sometimes even derive from
the kiss conceit. The most important of these are the migration and
exchange of the souls or hearts of lovers; the union and transforma-
tion of lovers into one another; the metaphorical "death" and subse-
quent resuscitation (or "new life") of lovers in the beloved; the oneness
of lovers unto and beyond the grave, that is, the love-death. In both
the sacred and the profane traditions such themes are most often found
separately, each having its own particular and noteworthy history.

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Here, however, I am concerned with them primarily insofar as they
illuminate or are directly associated with the central image of the soul
kiss.

Because the present study is a history — the history of a number
of religio-erotic themes — it has something of an encyclopedic range.
But I trust it will become clear that my effort has not been to compile
a cold academic catalogue. The soul kiss and other amatory topoi that
are dealt with herein have served as much as anything to supply me
with a key to essay explanations on topics that vary from theological
exegesis and mystical allegory to the love lyric of the troubadours, the
great love legends of the Middle Ages, and Dante; from the Renais-
sance concept of Platonic love to a number of Renaissance-Baroque
poets. In this sense I have sought, in the presentation of the large
amount of material, to build up a meaningful process of stratification,
as it were, leading to a step-by-step, concrete interpretation of texts.
Hopefully, this process functions to create progressively a cultural
context within which each successive passage studied finds its place
and is illuminated. For example, in my reading of Dante, what is set
forth as the summarizing and definitive word on the medieval attitude
to the various amatory conceits and the concept of love they imply pre-
supposes much if not all that precedes it as an historico-cultural per-
spective.

There remains the question of the specific context of the works
from which I have drawn my passages. Obviously it could not be my
intention to deal with all aspects of those works nor even to attempt a
full treatment of the love doctrines they expound overtly or covertly.
Some time ago a writer on the story of the evolution of love, in a brief
but nonetheless ecstatic excursus on the kiss, exclaimed: "Wonderful
pilgrimage of this old Proteus! Through all heavens and through all
hells. Through all loves! The whole history of human love-life could
be demonstrated by the kiss alone; it is like a colossal knot therein,
and if this knot alone were undone, all the strands in human love
would be shown at the same time."^^ But that is almost all that Wilhelm
Bolsche had to say about the kiss in the 1124 pages of a tome bearing
the title Love-Life in Nature. I trust I have not given cause to be
charged with the opposite excess, that is, of having paid so much at-
tention to kisses as to forget love. Yet I have certainly not aimed at
giving a total history of love sub specie osculi. Bolsche's call is alluring,
but to heed it absolutely would most certainly prove fatal; hence I am

INTRODUCTION

glad it came to me only after I had finished my own book. Needless to
say, in wishing to trace a history of the significance and variations of
religio-erotic symbolism, particularly of the kiss, I was aware that
I could not avoid doctrines of love. Accordingly, I have dealt with
them, at times even at length, but chiefly as contextual background to
my main themes. In doing so, I have tried to maintain a balance suitable
to my scope. Within this perspective, the amatory symbolism I have
investigated may be expected to tell us, if not all, at least something
of importance concerning certain love doctrines, sacred and profane.

J. The 8arly Christian Centuries

mong many peoples the kiss has been known as an ex-
pression of passionate love and as a salutation — without
erotic significance — denoting affection or respect. This was
true of the ancient Hebrews. The Old Testament, which
has references to both usages, records the kiss primarily as a sign of
affection given between relatives at farewells or welcomes, but also as
a mark of reconciliation, as when Jacob was reconciled with Esau. How-
ever, there are also instances of the kiss exchanged between friends, of
which the most striking example is the kiss of affection between
Jonathan and David.* The only clear mention of the kiss being given
on the mouth is connected with the passionate love of the Song of
Songs: "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth" "Thy lips
drip as the honeycomb, my spouse: / Honey and milk are under thy
tongue" (4:11). Given the number of kisses in the Old Testament, it is
noteworthy that the kiss seems not to have been used by the early
Jews in any specifically ritualistic way. This contrasts with what we
find in the Christian tradition, where the kiss apparently had an im-
portant ritualistic and sacramental function from the beginning. None-
theless, that Christianity owes something of its earliest kiss symbolism
to Judaism is hardly to be denied. The references to the kiss in the
life of Jesus have all the marks of authentic reports of customs pre-
vailing among the Palestinian Jews of New Testament times. This is
the impression one gets from a passage in Luke where we read that
Christ reproached the Pharisee Simon for not greeting him with a kiss
after inviting and receiving him into his house (Luke 7:45). Even the
betrayal of Jesus with a kiss reveals at least that among some groups
of Jews the kiss was given to a leader or master as an act of reverence
and homage, the sign of a special bond.^ Such a usage was to be quite
common among the Jews through the centuries.

Of capital importance in the development of the kiss as a symbol
of union in the Christian tradition are the exhortations, made four
times by Paul and once by Peter, that the brethren salute one another
with a holy kiss, or with a kiss of love.® The repeated use of this
formula and the contexts in which it occurs suggest that the kiss was

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CENTURIES

quickly institutionalized in the young Christian community as a mystic
symbol both in liturgical and non-liturgical ceremony. Here, in any
case, is the origin of what was to become known as the kiss of peace
and the Christian kiss of friendship. It will be well therefore to look
at the New Testament texts for the connection to be found between
the kiss and the ideas of peace, union, and love.

The New Testament Kiss of Peace

Because the idea of peace was one of the key notions associated
with Jewish Messianism, its importance in Christianity was assured.
Few words have been so fundamental to the Christian vocabulary as
the word peace, pax. For the Christian, the Prince of Peace spoken of
in Isaiah g:6 is another name for Jesus Christ. Speaking of the new
faith as open to both Jew and Gentile, Paul avers that "He is our bond
of peace; he has made the two nations one" (Eph. 2:14). As we know,
one of the chief concerns of the apostle was that there be no want of
unity in the body, that is, the Church, for "all of us have been baptized
into a single body by the power of a single Spirit" (I Cor. 12:25 i
These last remarks are made to the brethren at Corinth among whom
Paul was endeavoring to restore order. The epistle carries with it the
plea that they exchange the holy kiss among themselves (I Cor. 16:20).
In his second Epistle to the Corinthians, shortly after reminding them
that Christ Jesus lives in them (II Cor. 13:5), Paul again urges them to
kiss one another, this time in a context that even more closely associates
the kiss with the ideas of unity, peace, and love: "Perfect your lives,
listen to the appeal we make, think the same thoughts, keep peace
among yourselves, and the God of love and peace will be with you.
Greet one another with the kiss of saints" (II Cor. 13 :ii-i2). The kiss
is here an invitation to reconciliation and the unity of spirit that Paul
wants to see prevail among his coreligionists. It is true that concord
was a matter of vital practical necessity for the survival of the new
faith, but more than that, for Paul, it was a condition and sign of the
mystical reality of the Church as the body of Christ, an idea that is
predicated by his concept of the indwelling of the Spirit or of Christ
Jesus in those who embrace the faith. In insisting on the need for con-
cord and peace among the Church's members, Paul was consciously
being the apostle of Jesus' command that men love one another. That
there may be no disunity in the body, he says, the "more excellent

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

way" is love. The great lesson on love in I Corinthians 13 :i-i3 is made
precisely in connection with the problem of preserving the unity of
the members of the one body of Christ. It is love that knits the many
into one. The kiss is an expression of love and a symbol of union. The
holy kiss that Paul urges the brethren to give one another is a unitive
kiss of love.^

In the second Epistle to the Corinthians, the invitation to kiss is
immediately followed by a reference to the fellowship or communion
of the Holy Spirit; "the imparting of the Holy Spirit be with you all."
It is well known that Paul uses apparently with the same mystical
significance such expressions as "in Christ" and "in the Spirit," or
"Christ in us" and "the Spirit in us." There also occurs the expression
"the Lord is the Spirit" (II Cor. 3:17), suggesting that wherever the
Spirit is, there too is Christ. Such texts reveal that in Paul (as in some
of the earliest Church Fathers after him) the identification of the Son
with the Spirit was not uncommon.

Of the many texts that have bearing on our discussion, a few are
of such importance that they may assist us in determining the par-
ticular mystical significance of the New Testament holy kiss. In
Romans — another of the Epistles in which the kiss is urged upon the
faithful — we find a fundamental Pauline concept in the words "a man
cannot belong to Christ unless he has the Spirit of Christ" (8:9-10).
Collectively those who are to exchange the kiss are the body of Christ,
but individually each would be expected to have the Spirit of Christ
within him. It is in this sense, in fact, that Paul repeatedly applies one
of his most magnificent and far-reaching metaphors; the bodies of the
faithful are the temples of the living God. The principal texts occur
precisely in the Epistles that speak of the kiss: "Do you not under-
stand that you are God's temple, and that God's Spirit has his dwelling
in you? If anyone desecrates the temple of God, God will bring him to
ruin. It is a holy thing this temple which is nothing other than your-
selves" (I Cor. 3:16-17). "Surely you know that your bodies are the
shrines of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in you" (I Cor. 6:19). "And
you are the temple of the living God" (II Cor. 6;i6).® By that Spirit
(which is the force of Love or Charity) dwelling in the individual mem-
bers (bodies) the many are made to coinhere in a spiritual corporate
oneness that is the one mystical body whose head is Christ. The Spirit
is, as it were, the Soul of this collective body which is the Church, an
idea that we shall find explicitly stated by St. Augustine. But this is

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CENTURIES

already Paul's great principle of unity, and we can understand why
he admonishes the brethren to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the
bond of peace; for they are, he says, "one body, with a single Spirit"
(Eph. 4:2-5). "We too, all of us, have been baptized into a single body
by the power of a single Spirit . . . , we have all been given drink at a
single source, the one Spirit" (I Cor. 12:13). When the individual
bodies kiss, they give evidence of being knit together by virtue of the
Spirit they have in common. It may be said that they kiss one another
with that Spirit.

Thus although the New Testament holy kiss is, in one sense, a
continuation of the Jewish custom of a kiss accompanied by a wish for
peace, when seen, as it must be seen, in the context of Paul's pneuma-
tology, it is revealed as a mystic symbol that goes far beyond anything
for which Judaism could have been responsible. That the kiss could be
made to acquire such extraordinary significance was not only because
it was the expression of love and reconciliation and effected a union of
spirits (breaths), but also because the very spirit (breath) that was
emitted or exchanged in the real kiss could figure as a symbolic vehicle
for the immaterial Spirit (Breath) indwelling in the spiritualized bodies
of the brethren.

The question arises as to what, if any, other influences were opera-
tive in the New Testament holy kiss or in the subsequent Christian
ritualistic use of the kiss of peace. That the kiss as a mark of reconcilia-
tion and union following discord was well known and in practice in
Paul's time is made clear not only by earlier Old Testament references,
but also by its metaphorical employment in two passages of Philo
Judaeus' Questions on Exodus, a work whose Greek original exists
only in fragments but which was preserved in an early Armenian trans-
lation. In both passages the kiss is used to indicate matters of a cosmic
nature. The first (Bk. II, 78) speaks of the meeting of the things of
creation in an embrace and kiss of concord. The second (Bk. II, 118)
is even more suggestive, for it comes in connection with Philo's dis-
cussion of the divine Logos as the mediator and bond of all things,
weaving together all parts of the universe, including contrarieties. It
is this Logos that exercises a compelling force (love) that causes things
that are apparently inimical to each other and irreconcilable by nature
to unite by way of a communion, an embrace and kiss of love.® These
passages led an outstanding scholar of Philo and Christianity more
than seventy years ago to maintain that the kiss of peace was perhaps

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

a formal and ceremonial institution of the Jewish Synagogue/ Un-
fortunately this supposition remains unwarranted, inasmuch as there
is no documentary evidence supporting it. It is enough for us, however,
that Philo should have used the kiss in the metaphorical way he did.
Jew though he was, and fundamentally true to the faith of his fathers,
Philo was nonetheless steeped in Hellenistic learning and ever ready
to make use of the erotic symbolism of the Greeks.® It is tempting to
think that his application of the kiss image to a philosophico-religious
context owes something to a Greek source or habit of expression, that
beyond the Old Testament references to the kiss of reconciliation, he
was familiar with the ritualistic kiss of some Hellenistic-Oriental mys-
tery cult. Nor can we entirely exclude the possibility of an esoteric
Jewish tradition contemporaneous with Philo in which Jewish customs
concerning the kiss were merged with Hellenistic usage. But again, on
such questions we can only conjecture. Now the same questions ne-
cessarily arise in the case of Paul because the Hellenistic and Palestinian
Jewish communities mutually influenced one another.

The problem of determining the degree of acquaintance Paul had
with Greek philosophy and the Hellenistic mysteries is a vexed ques-
tion in which we need not become involved, except to say that it does
not seem reasonable to deny that the Apostle must have had some
acquaintance with them. It is certainly true that already with Paul
Christianity was appropriating to itself something of the language of
the mystery religions. Nonetheless, even allowing that the kiss itself
might have had a special symbolical function in some of the initiation
rites of the mysteries, there is no record that it was used with the kind
of significance Paul seems to give to it.® However, mention should be
made here of a custom that existed among the Pythagoreans or Neo-
Pythagoreans. Notice of it comes from Plutarch when, in his essay on
brotherly love, he says that "We should pattern ourselves after the
Pythagoreans, who, though related not at all by birth, yet sharing a
common discipline, if ever they were led by anger into recrimination,
never let the sun go down before they joined right hands, embraced
each other, and were reconciled."’® It is not unlikely that this ceremony
included a kiss as a natural part of the reconciliatory embrace. The
interesting point here is that there is a passage in Paul that is strikingly
like what we have just read. Because we are members of one another in
one body, Paul says, let not the sun go down upon your anger (Eph.
4:25-26). Still, this is perhaps too tenuous a link to authorize a view

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CENTURIES

that Paul's holy kiss was influenced by a Neo-Pythagorean practice.

The repetition of the exhortation to kiss found in the New Testa-
ment, we have said, strongly suggests that from the earliest times the
kiss was a well-known ceremonial practice in the Christian com-
munity. The manner and context in which it is recommended would
seem to presuppose a familiarity with it as a mystical symbol and as a
liturgical observance. If this were not so, Paul's references to it would
not make much sense. Whether Paul was himself the originator of the
liturgical kiss is a moot question. His allusions to it in the Epistles to
the Corinthians and Thessalonians are made to Christian communities
founded by him, but he also mentions it to the Roman assembly. Be-
sides this there is the reference to it in the Epistle attributed to Peter.
Whatever the extent of its practice then was, it is certain that the kiss
continued to be used in a mystical sense in Christian ceremony. In
view of its subsequent development this can be affirmed, even though
there is no mention of it in post-scriptural literature until about a.d.
150, when we find Justin Martyr noting simply that the kiss is ex-
changed by the brethren following the prayers that are part of the
Eucharistic service.^

Following the passing but important reference in Justin Martyr,
mention of the kiss continues for some time to be scarce, though sig-
nificant enough to assure us of the extraordinary consequence attached
to it in the earliest Christian centuries. Its use outside the context of
a specific liturgical ceremony is attested by the Acts of Perpetua (VI, 4)
which describe the martyrdom of the African martyrs Perpetua and
Felicitas in a.d. 202. This document is generally accepted as being by
a contemporary of those martyrs. It is very likely, as Dom Anselm
Stolz has pointed out, that there is no martyrdom without mysticism.
In the Acta the martyrs are portrayed not only as having mystic visions,
but also as welcoming death out of great love. It is after they have been
mangled by the beasts and are about to be put to the sword that we
read of these martyrs that "they first kissed one another, that they
might consummate their martyrdom with the kiss of peace. This is
as sublime a testimony as one can hope to find of the mystic nature of
the Christian holy kiss. There are other notices, however, that reveal
more about its meaning in the broader context of Christian spirituality.

A case in point occurs in the writings of Hippolytus at the be-
ginning of the third century. From this source we learn that a newly
consecrated bishop received the kiss from all the members of his

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

church before officiating as bishop for the first time in the offering of
the Eucharist. A more significant detail is the role the kiss had in the
rites accompanying the initiation of a neophyte into the Christian com-
munity. Following his baptism, he was confirmed by the bishop, who
then gave him the kiss along with the chrism denoting the gift of the
Spirit. Before this solemn moment in which the neophyte received the
bishop's kiss and the chrism, he was not allowed to exchange the kiss
of peace with any of the brethren. Besides the Pauline pneumatology
and holy kiss that evidently inspire this particular kiss symbolism, one
can perhaps observe in it the influence of another New Testament
episode. In the Johannine Gospel it is said that when Jesus appeared
to the Apostles for the first time after his resurrection, he breathed the
Holy Spirit into or upon them. Significantly, this act was immediately
preceded by the offering of peace: "He therefore said to them again,
'Peace be to you! As the Father has sent me, I also send you.' When he
had said this, he breathed upon them, and said to them, 'Receive the
Holy Spirit' " (John 20:21-22). Such a passage, it seems, is at least in
part behind the ceremony of the bishop's kiss to the neophyte. This
idea receives support when we remember that the bishop is a vicar of
Christ (repraesentatio Christi) and that in the Johannine passage just
quoted, the reference to Christ's "breathing" the Holy Spirit upon (but
also, one may say, into) the Apostles was easily capable of being un-
derstood as a kiss, especially by Christians who were so conscious of
the mystic kiss symbolism.

The Kiss that Transmits the Holy Spirit

Thus when St. Augustine commented on this particular text, he
noted its meaning to be that the Lord somehow put his mouth to the
mouth of the disciples [i.e., the Church] in order to transmit his Spirit.
"Concerning that same Spirit the Apostle says: 'Now if any man have
not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his' (Rom. 8:9). It was also the
same Spirit that the Lord gave his disciples when he breathed [in-
sufflavit] on them and said 'Receive the Holy Spirit.' For he in some
way placed his mouth to their mouth when he gave them the Spirit by
breathing on them" [Os enim quodam modo super os posuit, quando
insufflando Spiritum dedit] This statement is a precious confirmation
of what one would surmise to have been the case, that is, that scriptural
and other references to the inbreathing or infusion of spirit spon-

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CENTURIES

taneously evoked in the minds of Christians the image of the kiss as
the vehicle for transmitting that spirit. In the same way even the
Genesis (2 :y) account, which relates that the Lord God, having created
or formed man from the dust of the ground, "breathed" or infused the
vital spirit into him, allowed Christians to figure the scene by the kiss
metaphor. Here in fact were the two great "kisses" of life in the history
of man, both of them involving the concept of a divine insufflation:
the one, coming before the Fall, gave man the spirit of life and, as some
theologians held, a rational soul; the other, after the redemptive Pas-
sion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, gave man (through the Church)
new life in the Holy Spirit.*® Hippolytus' description of the Christian
initiatory ceremony — that the neophyte was excluded from exchang-
ing the kiss of peace with the brethren until he had himself received
the bishop's kiss — was evidently based on the idea that until then he
had not been fully infused with Spirit and so was not yet a whole mem-
ber of the body of Christ, that is, of the Church.

A similar ritualistic employment of the kiss, although not in the
context of a specific ceremony, was recorded by Clement of Alexandria.
It has been preserved for us in The Ecclesiastical History (II, 9, 2) of
Eusebius who, after recounting how Herod had killed James, the broth-
er of John, goes on to say: "Concerning this James, Clement adds in
the seventh book of the Hypotyposes a story worth mentioning, ap-
parently from the tradition of his predecessors, to the effect that he
who brought him to the court was so moved at seeing him testify as
to confess that he also was himself a Christian. 'So they were both
led away together,' he [Clement] says, 'and on the way he asked for
forgiveness for himself from James. And James looked at him for a
moment and said. Peace be to you, and kissed him. So both were be-
headed at the same time.' While this kiss recalls the exchange of
the kiss of peace before martyrdom, such as we have observed it in
the Acts of Perpetua, it also has very much the same character of the
kiss bestowed by the bishop upon the neophyte of Hippolytus' passage,
and like the latter, it suggests a connection with the text from John
20:21-22. The James that is understood here is the very brother of
John and hence one of the original disciples of Jesus who had received
the peace greeting and the Spirit from the resurrected Master. Accord-
ing to the Johannine text, when Jesus breathed on the disciples and
spoke first the greeting of peace and then the words "Receive the Holy
Spirit," he did so in apprising them of the mission that was to be theirs.

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

saying to them: “Whose sins you shall forgive^ they are forgiven
them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained" (John 20:23).
The passage from Clement (by way of Eusebius who, it is worth noting,
says Clement had it from the tradition of his predecessors) shows us
the disciple James transmitting the Spirit by the kiss and remitting the
sins of one who had asked forgiveness from him.

We are aided in assessing the extent of the implementation of the
kiss symbolism in the early centuries of Christendom by some re-
markable examples in the writings of Christian Gnosticism, especially
that variety known as Valentinianism. In the Odes of Solomon (28:6-
7), for example, as the author exults in the firm faith that sustains
him, he exclaims joyously:

And deathless life embraced me

And kissed me.

And from that is the Spirit within me;

And it cannot die, for it lives.^®

Here the theological concept of the pneumatization of the be-
liever by the Spirit is accommodated to the image of an infusion and
impregnation effected by a kiss, and the text may in fact allude to some
such rite as we have seen described in Hippolytus. At any rate, with
it before us, we may turn, for an even more extraordinary text, to the
Gospel of Philip, which scholarship has convincingly shown is Valen-
tinian.**’ Among the “sayings" (31) of this Gnostic compilation we
find the following, which is defective in the first three lines but intact
and clear in the last five:

out of the mouth

the logos came forth thence

He would nourish from the mouth

And become perfect. For the perfect

Conceive through a kiss and give birth. Because of this

We also kiss one another.

We receive conception from the grace which is
Among us.^®

Again spiritual impregnation and fecundation are figured or rather
effected by a kiss which transmits the Spirit. The "perfect" are the
practitioners, that is, the Gnostics who, like the Christians in general
of that early period, exchange the kiss. Here, however, the suggestion
is very strong that the kiss was used in an even more central way

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CENTURIES

in a mystery rite. The passage is best seen in conjunction with another
that occurs a little later in the Gospel, a startling "saying" (55) that
describes Mary Magdalene as the consort of Christ receiving many
kisses from him;

And the

Consort of [Christ is] Mary Magdalene.

[The Lord loved Mary]

More than [all] the disciples, and
Kissed her on her [mouth]

Often. The others too

they said to him

"Why do you love her more than all of us?"®*

Mary Magdalene thus may be said to have become a spiritually preg-
nant "perfect" by receiving grace (or the Spirit) and gnosis directly
from the Lord's (real) kisses, more so than all the disciples. Here one is
tempted to bring to bear once again the passage from John 20:21-22.

On the basis of these two kiss passages, H. M. Schenke has argued
that the fundamental mystery of Philip is the kiss that the initiate
receives from the mystagogue. Moreover, by connecting the references
in Philip with what Irenaeus of Lyons says about the cult practice and
formulae of the Valentinian teacher Mark, Schenke has also suggested
that a kiss was the basic mystery of the Valentinians in general.®®
Irenaeus' scornful description is relevant enough to our purpose to be
quoted here:

For he busies himself most about women, those especially who are
elegantly clad, and wear purple, and are most wealthy: and often, try-
ing to mislead them, he says to them flatteringly, "I desire to impart
to thee of my grace, inasmuch as the Father of all sees continually
thine Angel before His face. Now the place of thy Greatness is in us :
it is meet for us to become one. Receive first from me and through
me the grace. Prepare thyself, as a bride awaiting her spouse, that thou
mayest be what I am and I what thou art. Settle in thy bridal chamber
the seed of the light. Receive from me the bridegroom, and compre-
hend [contain] him and be comprehended [contained] in him. Behold
the grace is come down upon thee."®®

Whatever may have been the true nature of the hierogamotic rite al-
luded to here, it seems reasonable enough to say that at its core was a
mystico-magical kiss by which grace or spirit is bestowed or trans-
mitted.

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

There is a non-Christian parallel to Irenaeus' account of Mark
which is the more fascinating and worthy of being noted here because
it dates from the same period, the second half of the second century
A.D. In one of his most entertaining and satirical essays, the skeptical
Lucian describes the mystery religion improvised by the charlatan
Alexander on the model of the famous Eleusinian mysteries. This Alex-
ander passed as a miraculous mystagogue and hierophant, and at the
culmination of the central mystery would embrace and kiss the mystes.
Lucian goes on to describe him and his cultists in the following way:
"He made it a rule not to greet anyone over eighteen years with his
lips, or to embrace and kiss him; he kissed only the young, extending
his hand to the others to be kissed by them. They were called 'those
within the kiss' ... It was a great thing that everyone coveted if he
simply cast his eyes upon a man's wife; if, however, he deemed her
worthy of a kiss, each husband thought that good fortune would flood
his house. The similarity to the kiss symbolism of Christian and
Gnostic ritual is at the very least striking. But rather than speak of an
influence of Christian practice on Alexander, it is safer to assume that
the kiss also held an important role in the initiatory rites of other
mystery religions of the first centuries. If we return now to the passage
quoted first from Irenaeus, the formula "Receive first from me and
through me the grace" again brings to mind the divine insufflation of
John 20:22. In addition to this, there may be an echo of the Song of
Songs, not only in the use of nuptial symbolism as such (the importance
of which, as of the Song, we must soon consider), but in the idea "that
thou mayest be what I am and I what thou art." In this there already
is the idea of a psychic exchange or identity of two in one for which
the formula in the Song is "I am unto my beloved and my beloved is
unto me" (6:2, and cf. 2:16). But it is the specific concept of a union
of two in one ("it is meet for us to become one") to be effected by a
kiss that we would consider now.

In this connection we are able to draw on still another Gnostic
text, the group of writings known as Pistis Sophia. Not the least signifi-
cant factor here is that this example involves a biblical passage which
itself employs the kiss image metaphorically. It is said that when Mary,
in compliance with her Son's request, interpreted the words "Justice
and Peace have kissed" (Psalm 84:11), she did so by recounting an
episode from that time of the childhood of Jesus when the Spirit had
not yet come upon him. One day there appeared to her a figure in

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CENTURIES

the exact likeness of Jesus, asking for the latter as for his brother.
Thinking him to be an evil phantasm intent on deceiving her, Mary
bound him; when hearing of it, Jesus demanded to be taken to him.
When the figure was loosened, Mary reminded her Son, "He kissed you
and you kissed him, and you two became but one." Now the figure that
so merged with Jesus in the kiss was no one less than the Holy Spirit,
who had come down from the height of the First Mystery or God
manifest of which Jesus is the Incarnation."^ This then would seem to
be a variation on the theme of the Gnostic syzygy between Christ and
the Pneuma to make for the Christ-Pneuma.

A similar example of this particular kiss motif occurs in a sixth
century Bohairic text which gives an account of the assumption of the
Virgin. It is said there that when Mary died, Jesus, who had come
down again to earth, took her soul and brought it into Heaven, where
he presented it to the Father and the Holy Spirit. After two hundred
and six days from the Virgin's death, Jesus once more descended with
Mary's soul [in the semblance of her physical likeness] seated in his
bosom. At the tomb he bade Mary's body come forth, whereupon,
the document says, the body arose and "embraced [kissed] its own
soul, even as two brothers who are come from a strange country, and
they were united with one another."'® It is significant that at this point
of the narration the writer cites the words from Psalm 84:11: "Mercy
and Truth have met; Justice and Peace have kissed."

Our examples of the kiss image in Gnostic writings are really in
keeping with and help throw light on other notices of the kiss in more
"orthodox" contexts ; whenever the kiss image appears having Chris-
tian symbolic value, Christ and the Spirit are present.

What the Lips Do

The fact that the kiss is mentioned in almost all the primitive
liturgies indicates that its importance as a mystic symbol had never
been brought into serious doubt. Here the only question was to be
about the particular moment that it was to be exchanged.*’' It is in con-
nection with the liturgy that we see the kiss definitely becoming known
as the kiss of peace. When the Church Fathers speak of the kiss,
whether in reference to the liturgy or not, they invariably recognize it
to be a sign of peace in which the hearts and souls of the faithful are
brought together. Thus the most significant idea attached to the kiss

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

continued to be its unitive function. This was expressed quite explicitly,
for example, by St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in whose words there is the
suggestion that the kiss exchanged by the brethren is more than just
a symbol, for his words incidentally inform us that the kiss between
ordinary friends was common even among non-Christians; hence,
he insists on the uniquely mystic quality and holiness of the Christians'
kiss:

Think not that this kiss ranks with those given in public by common
friends. It is not such: this kiss blends souls one with another, and
solicits for them entire forgiveness. Therefore this kiss is the sign
that our souls are mingled together, and have banished all wrongs. . . .
The kiss therefore is reconciliation, and for this reason holy: as the
blessed Paul has in his Epistles urged: Greet ye one another with a
holy kiss; and Peter, with a kiss of charity

St. Augustine has similar references to the kiss. It is he, for ex-
ample, who informs us that following the consecration of the Eucharist
the priest speaks the words "Pax vobiscum," whereupon the members
kiss one another. What the lips do, says Augustine, the hearts of those
who kiss should do, that is, join w'ith the lips and heart of the one
who is kissed: "After this is said: 'peace be with you'; and Christians
kiss one another with a holy kiss. It is the sign of peace; as the lips
make it known so let it be in our minds. That is to say, as your lips ap-
proach the lips of your brother let not your heart withdraw from
his."^® This passage is of great interest for at least two reasons. For
one thing, it seems to make clear that the kiss was made mouth to
mouth, a matter, as we shall later see, of no small consequence. In ad-
dition to this, it establishes or points to a vital connection between the
kiss of peace and the Eucharistic communion of the Mass. It was to be
the Roman rite in particular that most closely and firmly linked the
kiss with actual communion, for which sacrament it came to be con-
sidered a necessary preliminary. This was to remain the case through-
out the Middle Ages.

Now the Eucharist itself is a sign of love and union, and it effects
an incorporation of the partaker in Christ. Here the relationship be-
tween Christ and peace again becomes pertinent. Christ is the In-
carnate Peace that is intended in the formula Pax vobiscum and that
is about to be assimilated by the communicants. Moreover, it can even
be said that Christ is himself the very Kiss of Peace. Paul had said that
Jesus as the Incarnation of Peace united the two nations [Jews and

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CENTURIES

Gentiles] in himself and that he laid himself as the Cornerstone of
the foundation for the building of the Church (Eph. 2:14-20). In a ser-
mon on the Epiphany, Augustine went on to equate Paul's image of
the Cornerstone with the kiss of peace, for "what is a corner but the
joining of two walls coming from different directions, which then, as
it were, exchange the kiss of peace?"®* Hence, it is with good reason
that in yet another context, when referring to the formula Pax
vobiscum at the Eucharistic service, Augustine exclaims that the kiss
of peace is a great mystery or sacrament: "Pax vobiscum. Magnum
sacramentum osculum pacis."®^ Before partaking of the most mystic
of sacraments, the brethren manifest their own unity of spirit by the
exchange of the kiss of peace which is made in Christ's name and in
his Spirit, a sign that they are one by that Spirit. Only then are they
ready to receive the Host, that is, the Eucharistic Body of Christ by
which their mystical incorporation in Christ is effected. It is then that
they are the Body of Christ [i.e., the Church] breathing with and
animated by his Spirit. In a Whitsun sermon (267, 4) Augustine noted
that "What the soul is in the body of a man, that is the Holy Spirit in
the body of Christ, which is the Church; what the soul works in the
several members of a single body, that the Holy Spirit works in the
whole of the Church."®^ This is perhaps a good place to recall the
significant fact that the word Pax, which came to be used by itself to
refer to the kiss of peace {osculum pads), was also the term used in the
early Latin Christian centuries to refer to the unity of the ecclesia.

Another significant statement concerning the relationship be-
tween the liturgical kiss and the notion of an indispensable unity comes
from the Pseudo-Dionysius, a writer whose works (by way of a ninth
century translation by Scotus Erigena) were to exercise an immense
influence on medieval spirituality in Western Christianity. Dionysius
also speaks of the kiss of peace as a sacred mystery preparing for the
Eucharistic communion. Communion is a mystic participation in the
One, but that participation cannot be effected as long as the believer
is divided in himself or separated from others. The kiss of peace, he
says, is a call to the life of unity, first of all to the unification of the
self, for this is the principle of union that permits a union of many in-
dividuals and allows us to unite with God, who as the source of all
unity makes possible the assimilation into the One.®® There are Neopla-
tonic echoes in Dionysius, but here they are secondary to a funda-
mental Christian tenet that would be looked for in vain in Neoplaton-

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

ism. For Dionysius, not only is love the compelling force of unity ; love
comes from and is the One, and, unlike the abstract essence of the
Neoplatonists, that One is a personal God. In the context of the sacra-
ment of the Eucharist, it is Christ.

Among the Greek Fathers it is St. John Chrysostom who most
often refers to the kiss as a way for souls to unite. In a passage that
recalls Augustine's words, he tells us that when we exchange the kiss
as a symbol of love with our neighbors the Lord wants our souls to kiss
and our hearts to embrace.®^ And, like Dionysius, he explains that the
kiss the brethren are to exchange just before Communion is a call to
the life of unity that is necessary before they can receive the kiss
directly from the Master (such is how Chrysostom refers to the
Eucharist). That kiss, according to him, effects a real meeting and
union of souls, thereby resulting in the creation of a unique corporate
body of many members having one heart and soul such as existed
when, according to Acts 4:31-32, the Apostles were all filled with the
Holy Spirit: "When we are about to participate in the sacred Table
[the Eucharist], we are also instructed to offer a holy greeting [kiss].
Why? . . . We join souls with one another on that occasion by means
of the kiss, so that our gathering becomes like the gathering of the
apostles when, because all believed, there was one heart and one soul.
Bound together in this fashion, we ought to approach the sacred
mysteries."®® Closely connected with the idea expressed in this passage
is one we read of in Chrysostom's explication of Paul's invitation to
the brethren that they greet one another with a kiss in I Corinthians
16:20. After explaining that Paul brought harmony among certain of
the brethren who had been at variance, Chrysostom says that the great
Apostle then naturally bade them exchange the holy kiss, "because this
unites and makes one body."®® It goes without saying that the reference
here to the union in one body, said to be produced by the kiss, is again
to be understood in the sense of the mystical body of Christ, that is, the
Church whereby the members are made one. This is the body that has
"one heart and one soul."

Over and over we see that insofar as the kiss is recognized as a
way of joining bodies and spirits (or, indeed, breath-souls), it lends
itself to Christian spirituality as a symbol in the truest sense of the
word: it is itself what it signifies — a fusional or unifying action. Now
the symbolic value of the kiss because of this "inherent" characteristic
is further enhanced when we remember that the kiss is also felt to be

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CENTURIES

a natural expression of love, and that the union Christianity envisions
depends entirely on an act of love. The Petran Epistle, we remember,
speaks of a "kiss of love." So, too, when Chrysostom comments on
II Corinthians 13:12, he says that "the kiss is to be given as a fuel to
love, that it may generate affection." And again the Greek Father notes
that the kiss is a mingling of souls: "In this way our souls are bound
unto one another. Thus when we have returned from a journey we
kiss each other, our souls moving towards a mutual intercourse."®’^

Such expressions as this and, indeed, all others where a union
of souls or spirits is understood, plainly indicate that whatever form
the Christian holy kiss was taking — for example, an embrace and a
light cheek-to-cheek press — the notion behind it implied a mouth-to-
mouth contact. As for Chrysostom, there is no doubt that he is speak-
ing of the kiss on the mouth. In fact, to explain why souls move to meet
in the kiss, he says that the mouth "is the organ which most effectively
declares the working of the soul." But an even more explicit statement
that a mouth kiss is intended occurs when Chrysostom adds another
mystic dimension to the meaning of the Christian kiss. Precisely in
reference to the kiss, he twice recalls Paul's idea that our bodies are
the temples of the Lord. Thus immediately after the above-quoted
words he observes: "Something more may be said about this holy kiss.
Wherefore? We are the Temple of Christ; thus when we kiss each
other we kiss the vestibule and the entrance of the Temple. . . .
Through these gates and doors [the mouths of the faithful] Christ has
entered and enters when we partake of communion."®® And elsewhere
the same thought appears with a clearer reference to the Spirit: "The
Holy Spirit has made us temples of Christ. Therefore when we kiss
each other's mouths, we are kissing the entrance of the temple."®® Thus
we see why the Christian kiss of peace is indeed so sacramental an
act. We will not overstrain Chrysostom's thought if we say that it
strongly suggests that in kissing one another Christians are also kiss-
ing Christ. When, at the celebration of the Mass, the priest kisses the
altar, he is kissing Christ of whom the altar is a symbol. And every
Christian who has the Spirit within him is another Christ.

The Kiss of Betrayal

That the love which binds the brethren into one body must not be
feigned goes without saying. References to the kiss of peace some-

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

times include warnings that it be given without dissemblance. The
fourth century Constitutions of the Apostles, speaking of the kiss in
the liturgy to be given before the Eucharist, makes the following ad-
monishment: “Let no one have any quarrel against another; let no one
come to it [to the Host] in hypocrisy. Then let the men give the men,
and the women give the women, the Lord's kiss. But let no one do it
with a deceit, as Judas betrayed the Lord with a kiss."^“ In all such
warnings against deceit the example of Judas is implied or explicitly
evoked. We observe it in St. Augustine, who regards the kiss of Judas
as the prototype of a lack of correspondence between the lips and the
heart, hence of treachery. Because the kiss of peace is a holy mystery,
one should kiss so as to inspire love. Be not like Judas, Augustine warns
us. The traitor Judas kissed Christ with his mouth, but in his heart he
was betraying him.'*^ The implication here is that Judas did not have
a kiss in that true or spiritual sense whereby it is the symbolic vehicle
for the uniting of hearts or souls in a bond of peace and love.

This idea, in fact, was expressly enunciated before Augustine by
his great forerunner, St. Ambrose. Discussing the Christian message
of the Advent of the Messiah and the peace that he brings to those
who acknowledge him, Ambrose writes:

A kiss is the sign of love. What kiss could the Jew have, seeing that
he has not known peace, has not received peace from Christ, who said:
"My peace I leave with you." ... So the Pharisee had no kiss, except
perhaps the kiss of the traitor Judas. But Judas had no kiss either; and
that was why, when he wanted to show the Jews the Kiss he had
promised them as the sign of betrayal, the Lord said to him: "Judas,
betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?" He meant, do you offer
a kiss when you have not the love which goes with a kiss, do you
offer a kiss when you know not the mystery of the kiss? It is not the
kiss of the lips which is required, but the kiss of heart and mind
[soul]. ... A kiss conveys the force of love, and where there is no
love, no faith, no affection, what sweetness can there be in kisses?'*-

That Judas betrayed his master with a kiss was accounted by
Christians a betrayal of the kiss itself as well as of the Lord. Pre-
cisely because the kiss was so sacred and sacramental a sign of the love,
peace, and unity that should reign among men, especially among the
brethren, the kiss of Judas has struck Christians as an act of unspeak-
able perversion. Once again Ambrose supplies us with an early and
forceful text. It is a sign of the profound impression the act had upon

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CENTURIES

him that he recalls it in the context of a eulogy of man's body^ in
particular of the mouth, which is praised as the instrument of speech,
but even more as the organ for the kiss by which man gives expression
to peace and love: "Hence the Lord, condemning His betrayer as a
species of monstrosity, says: 'Judas, dost thou betray the Son of Man
with a kiss?' That is to say, changing the emblem of love into a sign
of betrayal and a revelation of unfaithfulness, are you employing this
pledge of peace for the purpose of cruelty? And thus by the oracular
voice of God reproof is given to him who by a bestial conjunction of
lips bestows a sentence of death rather than a covenant of love."^®
The most eloquent testimony to the extraordinary place the great
betrayal has had in the minds of men is to be found in Christian
iconography, which has over and over depicted the scene in a way that
accentuates the sense of abhorrence and the idea of division caused by
that kiss. Its definitive treatment is perhaps in the justly celebrated
fresco by Giotto (Fig. 5). As Judas carries out his embrace and kiss, the
folds of his cloak are being wrapped around Christ so that the two
figures seem to be merging into one. But at the same time, the painter
has made Judas appear as the very species of monstrosity that Ambrose
spoke of, "who by a bestial conjunction of lips" belies the union which
is suggested by his embrace and is normally signified by the kiss. It
is worth noting that the Church omits the kiss of peace from the Mass
on Holy Thursday as an expression of its horror and sorrow at the kiss
of betrayal.

The Impure Kiss

The use of the kiss in Christendom was evidently not without its
perils. Christians themselves were alert to the sensual dangers that
lurked in kisses, and the entreaties to keep the kiss holy sometimes
referred to more than keeping it free from hypocrisy and deceit. In
his Plea Regarding Christians (c. a.d. 176), Athenagoras warned
against the abuse and perversion of this religious salutation: "We thus
feel it a matter of great importance that those, whom we thus think
of as brothers and sisters and so on, should keep their bodies undefiled
and uncorrupted. For the Scripture says again. If anyone kisses a sec-
ond time because he found it enjoyable. . . . Thus the kiss, or rather the
religious salutation, should be very carefully guarded. For if it is defiled
by the slightest evil thought, it excludes us from eternal life."^ The

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

source Athenagoras had in mind when he attributed this thought to
Scripture is unauthenticated, and the phrase is broken off in his own
original text. The point he is making, however, is clear enough.

Some scathing remarks by Clement of Alexandria also give us
a picture of the abuse of the kiss among some of the early Christians.
Clement's vehement denunciation makes it clear that the Christians
provoked scandal by promiscuous osculation. While recognizing Paul's
authority and the existence of a "mystic" kiss, he is so outraged by
the deceit and secret lust of many that he comes close to denying the
necessity of the kiss as a sign of true Christian love. At the very least
we have an eloquent contrast between the kiss of charity and the kiss
of lust:

Love is not proved by a kiss, but by kindly feeling. But there are those
that do nothing but make the churches resound with a kiss, not having
love itself within. For this very thing, the shameless use of a kiss, which
ought to be mystic, occasions foul suspicions and evil reports. The
apostle calls the kiss holy. When the kingdom is worthily tested, we
dispense the affection of the soul by a chaste and closed mouth, by
which chiefly gentle manners are expressed. But there is another, un-
holy, kiss, full of poison, counterfeiting sanctity. Do you not know
that spiders, merely by touching the mouth, afflict men with pain?
And often kisses inject the poison of licentiousness. It is then very
manifest to us, that a kiss is not love. "And this is the love of God,"
says John, "that we keep His commandments" (I John, 3); not that
we stroke each other on the mouth.'*®

In connection with such admonishments, it is relevant to recall a
somewhat striking page from the second century religious "novel,"
The Shepherd of Hernias, one of the most widely read books in Chris-
tendom during the early centuries. In this work, which teaches a strict
Christian morality, there is a moment when the narrator Hermas re-
counts a curious episode. That we have to do with a vision takes noth-
ing away from its piquancy. Having been left alone by the shepherd
in the company of a band of virgins, Hermas is invited not only to take
shelter among them but also to sleep with them "as a brother, not as
a husband." Hermas blushes with shame, but his reticence is dispelled
when he is kissed first by their leader and then by the others who now
frolic with him. In the evening, inside the house, the virgins disrobe
and Hermas is made to lie in their midst. But throughout the night the
virgins did nought but pray, and Hermas along with them, so that they

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CENTURIES

were glad for it.^® It is clear that this interlude (for such it is in the
"story") is an adaptation of an erotic pagan theme. The Christian ele-
ment would then be in the abstinence of Hermas in the midst of temp-
tations and the rejoicing of the virgins on account of it. It may be, as
modern criticism says, that the episode reflects a dangerous experiment
of some early Christian groups, that of living as brothers and sisters
in a sort of communal life.^’’ But if this is so, then it must still be said
that Hermas is put through a kind of trial, for the kisses that are
bestowed upon him are blandishments; though they occur after he
is called "brother," they are meant to coax him. Thus one is tempted
to say that those kisses cannot be understood as the Christian spiritual
kiss of peace or friendship. It is interesting to note that just prior to
his own escapade with the virgins, Hermas was observing their activity
as the guardians of a tower that was being constructed. When the
Master of the tower arrived to inspect its progress, the virgins ran
toward him and greeted him with a kiss. Now this Master, it turns out,
is Christ, portrayed as taller than the tower, which, we learn, is nothing
less than the Church. Thus it is the same virgins who kiss Christ who
also kiss and entice Hermas. The difficulty in accommodating the two
kisses may derive as much from our own remoteness from the spirit
and literary devices of this early Christian work as from an infelicitous
appropriation by its author of the pagan erotic theme.'*®

The Kiss Between Creature and Creator

The liturgical kiss of peace and the holy kiss of salutation or
friendship have already a deep mystic significance inasmuch as they
indicate the union of the souls of the faithful in Christ. It is to be noted
that these kisses, which are real, refer to a relationship between crea-
tures and are not colored by the erotic language of human passion. But
that the image of the kiss and the embrace was used early to depict the
blessed union between the creature and God is evidenced by a passage
from St. Cyprian in the middle of the third century: "Holding to this
faith, and meditating thereon day and night, let us too aspire to God
with all our heart, disdaining the present and thinking only on the
things that are to be, the fruition of the eternal kingdom, the embrace
and the kiss of the Lord, the vision of God."*®

It is clear that these words are spoken as much from an eschato-
logical as from a strictly mystical point of view ; St. Cyprian is address-

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

ing those who were facing martyrdom for their faith, and he
encourages them to remain firm and to think of the blessed union that
awaits them when their earthly travail is over. Since nuptial symbolism
is not present in the context from which this passage comes, one can-
not be sure whether the kiss is here paternal or conjugal. In its efforts
to express the intimate, personal relationship between God and man,
Christianity has developed a twofold symbolism according to which
the soul is thought of as the bride or daughter of God. There is an-
other early example of the eschatological kiss which would seem to
suggest the Father-child relationship obtaining between God and the
soul, although we cannot be absolutely sure even here. This is found
in the Acts or Passion of Perpetua to which we have already referred.
Among the visions the martyrs have in that little treatise, there is one
had by Saturus which describes how he and the others (including Per-
petua), having been martyred, were received into Paradise by angels
who brought them into the chamber of the Most Holy. The seated
figure of the Deity is there seen as a hoary, white-haired man but with
a youthful face: "vidimus in eodem loco sedentem quasi hominem
canum, niveos habentem capillos, et vultu iuvenili." The martyrs, be-
ing raised by the angels to the throne, kiss the Lord: "et quattuor
angeli sublevaverunt nos : et osculati sumus illum."®° However fascin-
ating this example is, we are not helped by it in determining the
quality of the kiss in St. Cyprian. But although Cyprian has not speci-
fied its character, the fact that his kiss is accompanied by the em-
brace makes it more likely than not that it is conjugal. At the time
Cyprian wrote, the Song of Songs, as we shall soon see, was beginning
to influence spiritual writing with its sensual imagery. Meanwhile our
opinion may receive support from the consideration of a curious but
revealing feature of early Christian funerary symbolism which is much
to our purpose.

In the early centuries it was the practice of Christian iconography
to borrow motifs from well-established and still current pagan myths.
Especially in the case of sarcophagi designs, this was partly because
the artisans upon whom the Christians depended for services were
very likely pagans and therefore accustomed to reproducing certain
common motifs without difficulty. Besides this, Christians could use
such motifs on their own funerary monuments without arousing too
much suspicion or adverse comment. Understandably, they would look

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CENTURIES

for those myths that could^ while retaining a pagan semblance, be in-
terpreted in a Christian key. Among the motifs applicable in this way
were those connected with the myth of Psyche and Eros; and of the
various aspects of this myth the one clearly favored by the Christians
of Rome was that which showed the pair embracing and kissing.
In his study on the myth of Psyche in Greek and Roman art, Maxime
Collignon listed seven Christian sarcophagi, dating from the second
to the fourth centuries, that bear representations of this group.'’^ That
the same group appears frequently on pagan funerary monuments of
the same period is itself a fact of the greatest significance. Collignon
notes that in the second and third centuries of the Christian Era at
Rome, few subjects are as frequently represented on sarcophagi as the
group Eros and Psyche united in a divine embrace and kiss.®^ Psyche,
of course, is the human soul of the departed, and Eros — even when
represented as a putto or as a youth — is always a powerful god of love.
Although usually awkwardly executed on the sarcophagi, the amatory
couple is invariably represented in the manner of the beautiful and
famous statue (fourth century b.c.) in the Capitoline Museum in Rome
(Fig. 6). It is Eros who bestows the kiss with all the suggestion that
he is infusing the spirit of new life into Psyche. Thus the adoption of
the myth by Christians is easily accounted for. On pagan and Chris-
tian funerary monuments alike, the motif indicates a belief or a hope
in an afterlife in which the soul enjoys the eternal bliss vouchsafed it
by Love.

The kissing couple may very well depict a wedding union in
heaven. Particularly suggestive of this is the depiction of the motif
on the bottom of a painted vase found in the Priscilla catacombs (Fig.
7). Here too Psyche and Eros kiss in the fashion of the Capitoline
group, but in addition there is an inscription which reads: Anima
dulcis jruamur nos sine bile. Zeses (Sweet soul, let us enjoy this bliss
without misgivings. Live). From this motto and other elements in the
scene, Filippo Buonarotti, who first published this fragment in 1716,
deduced the significance to be a convivial invitation such as was made
at weddings by the groom to the bride.*^ In this representation, like
those on the Christian sarcophagi, pagan Eros is an allegory of the
Christian God who is Love wedding the soul unto himself eternally.
The scene may be perfectly glossed with the words quoted earlier from
St. Cyprian, or by these of the same writer: “Fully blessed are they.

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

who among you, having walked by this path of glory, have departed
from the world and . . . have already attained the embrace and the
kiss of the Lord."®^

In passing from such representations of the eschatological union
of the soul and God to a consideration of the image of the kiss and
embrace in the description of the mystical union between God and the
soul of the still living creature (or the Church as the embodiment of all
the individual members of the faith), the first thing to be said is that
here the language of human passion is employed unabashedly. Indeed,
the eroticism in the language of the mystics increases in ratio to the
intensity of the spirituality of their experience. Of course, between
divine love and carnal love there can be no confusion, because the
two are incommensurable by virtue of their different objects of desire.
And yet the history of Western spirituality shows that the most ad-
equate language mystics have fashioned in order to describe their ex-
perience of union reverts to the imagery of bold human love and
intense carnal pleasure. The justification for this usage can depend
only on a principle of analogy.

The mystic's path to God is primarily a way of love because it is
felt that love is that which best implements a union between lover and
beloved. Needless to say, the conception of love as a unifying force is
older than Christianity, being common in the love literature and
philosophy of the ancients. There can be no doubt, for example, that in
the West one of the most far-reaching and influential statements con-
cerning love was made by Plato in the Symposium when he illustrated
by way of the androgyne myth the idea that love is the desire for the
whole. What every lover wants, says the interlocutor Aristophanes, is
"that he should melt into his beloved, and that henceforth they should
be one being instead of two. The reason is that this was our primitive
condition when we were wholes, and love is simply the name for the
desire and pursuit of the whole."“ Or we may recall that Lucretius be-
gan his philosophical poem with an invocation to the great force that,
coursing throughout nature, brings male and female into union, though
it is significant that later (Bk. IV) he was careful to show that the desire
and efforts of passionate lovers to fuse into one another was a mad-
ness worthy only of ridicule.

Now it is a fact that the Judeo-Christian tradition had within it
one of the richest possible sources for the idea of the fusional or unitive
character of love in reference to the human couple. Genesis spoke of

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CENTURIES

marriage as a cleaving of man and woman to one another by which
they become one body or flesh (Gen. 2:24). The thought attributed to
Christ in Matthew 19:4-6, and the remarkable Pauline text from
Ephesians (5 :zg ff.), which we are soon to consider, echo this view of
the unitive function of marriage and, it should be noted, have nothing
to say about a procreative end. It is well known, however, that sub-
sequently Christian writers, perhaps needing to overcorrect sexual
laxity, established a priority in marriage which gave to procreation
such prominence that the unitive function was greatly underplayed,
though it would be wrong to think that this aspect did not continue to
impress itself in the imaginations of the faithful and of the theologians
in particular, the same who could have little to say openly on behalf
of earthly marriage. At any rate, it is a fact that with the triumph of
Christianity, the idea of the unifying motivation and function of love
simply became more and more the greatest single truth concerning
love, one that was to be repeated down the centuries by spiritual and
carnal lover alike. Hence, in his classic definition, St. Augustine did
not fail to note that both kinds of love — spiritual and physical — have
this copulative and unifying effect as their chief characteristic and
function: "What then is love but a kind of life somehow uniting or
seeking to unite two [beings], that is, the lover and his beloved? And
this is also the case in external physical loves."®® Love is so much a
matter of desiring to become one with the beloved that the intense
pleasure of lovers is to be explained by the fact that their bodies have
become one: "What is all love? Does it not desire to be made one with
what it loves and if it touches it, become one with it? That pleasure
gives such strong delight for no other reason than that bodies loving
one another are made into one."®’^

As for the Greeks, though they had a complete theory about love
as a unifying power — in physical love, friendship, and political concord
— they did not apply it to a definition of the Deity. Even for Neoplaton-
ism, love is a way for man to seek after and climb to God, but it is not
itself of the nature of Deity. The Christians, of course, find love to be
at the very core of God and deriving from him; hence love between
God and man is a mutual affair. Nor will this metaphysics or, if one
prefers, psychology of love be seriously disputed by most readers; for
indeed it is the chief premise guiding the investigations into the na-
ture of love being made by modern psychologists, whether these be
Christian believers or not.®®

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Thus it is essential to keep in mind this fundamental truth regard-
ing love as understood by Christians: the principle or^ indeed, the
source of love is one regardless of the direction it may take in an in-
dividual. This idea, which is implicit in Augustine's words quoted
above, was worked out by the saint in his famous and influential con-
ception of the contrast or tension between charity and cupidity. The
medieval writers were to keep fairly well within the Augustinian terms
in their own discussions of love, although this did not exclude personal
and original insights. In the twelfth century, Hugh of Saint-Victor re-
minded his audience that love is the ultimate source of all good and
all evil because "a single fount of love, surging up within us, gushes
out into two streams: one is the love of the world, cupidity; the other
the love of God, charity.'"’® The heart of man is the theatre where the
drama of tension takes place. Love is a movement of the heart {motus
cordis), single and one by nature, but divided in its act according to
whether it is ordinate or inordinate.®® For the Christian the whole
problem of love is one of setting charity in order.

Nuptial Symbolism

That the source or principle of love is one and the same regardless
of the object desired and loved is at least a partial explanation for
the use mystic lovers make of the language of human passion. Most
often the erotic imagery employed by Christian writers is contained
within the broader symbolism of spiritual nuptials wherein the rela-
tionship between God and the Ghurch or the individual soul is re-
garded as a conjugal bond of love uniting two in one. For the use of the
marriage metaphor Christians had before them not only the New
Testament's references to Christ as a Bridegroom, but more particu-
larly the great authority of the Pauline text which made of the con-
jugal union of man and wife a symbol for the spiritual union between
Christ and the Church:

The man is the head to which the woman's body is united, just as
Christ is the head of the Church; . . . and women must owe obedience
at all points to their husbands, as the Church does to Christ. . . . And
that is how husband ought to love wife, as if she were his own body;
in loving his wife, a man is but loving himself. It is unheard of, that
a man should bear ill-will to his own flesh and blood; no, he keeps it
fed and warmed; and so it is with Christ and his Church, we are limbs

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CENTURIES

of his body; flesh and bone, we belong to him. That is why a man will
leave his father and mother and will cling to his wife, and the two
will become one flesh. Yes, those words are a high mystery, and 1 am
applying them here to Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:23-33).®^

Elsewhere Paul writes to the brethren that he has wed them to a
single and unique bridegroom, Christ, so that he alone may have them
as a virgin without stain (II Cor. 11:2). We must observe here that
in the Pauline texts the mystical application of the nuptial idea is re-
stricted to Christ and a collective body of persons, that is, the Church;
hence, although there are passages in Paul that show his belief in a
personal mystical union with Christ, his nuptial symbolism cannot
be said to justify the subsequent Christian extension of the idea to a
marriage between God and the individual soul. In seeking the source
of this idea (which was to appear clearly in a Christian w'riter for the
first time with Origen), one is brought to think of the Greek and
Oriental mysteries and of early Neoplatonism. According to Evelyn
Underhill, "The symbolism of the spiritual marriage between God
and the soul goes back to the Orphic Mysteries and thence via the
Neoplatonists into the stream of Christian tradition."®' This is quite
likely, because although the nuptial idea is present in the Old Testa-
ment, the bride there, as in Paul, is a collective body; indeed, the idea
of the individual soul as the bride has never been congenial to norma-
tive Judaism.®® Nonetheless, as important as may have been the Neo-
platonic influence and such passages as those we find in Paul, of
themselves these would hardly have led to the truly extraordinary
development of nuptial symbolism and, in particular, to the high
degree of eroticism associated with it in the Christian tradition. What
really made that possible was the presence of the Song of Songs in
the Jewish and Christian biblical canon.

Whatever the origins of the Song may be (such as secular love
poems, or liturgical poems of the Adonis-Tammuz fertility cult), Chris-
tians were very naturally led to read it as a spiritual epithalamium
in which the Bridegroom was God and the bride was the Church. The
Christian retention of the Song stems from the fact that it was already
one of the cherished books of the Jews, who understood it to be the
expression of a special and intimate bond between Yahweh and the
community of Israel. If, as seems likely, such an allegorical interpre-
tation was current among the Rabbis in Paul's time, it is almost
certain that the great convert's own appropriation of the nuptial idea

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

to the Christian context owes something to it. But the most impor-
tant point is that, from the time of the first Christian commentaries on
the Song, we find the exegetes extending the symbolism of the bride
from the Church to the individual soul athirst for the love union
with the Bridegroom and desirous of being fructified by him.®^

It is clear that the joy proclaimed by the Shulamite could hardly
be tolerated if referred to a real bride, because marriage did not in
itself justify such desires and pleasures.®'’ Nor could the yearning of
the bride be accepted as a longing for a human bridegroom, since the
only proper and salutary yearning of the creature is that which is
directed toward the Creator. But what had to be denied to the flesh and
human love (even within the marriage bond) could be allowed, in
fact, was necessary, in the courtship and love existing between the
soul and God. Or rather, since there is no question of an equivalence
between the two kinds of betrothals and no doubt about the nature
of divine love, the "sinful" pleasures of human passion could be
applied as metaphors to the legitimate and holy longing of the enam-
oured soul seeking union with God; within such a context they become
laudable virtues. In this connection, it is worthy of note that the Song
of Songs, which supplied the mystics with most of their erotic imagery,
was almost unanimously considered by the Christian exegetes to be
pure allegory; that is, no literal or profane meaning was to be attrib-
uted to its text. Here the cleavage between the letter and the spirit is
absolute and everything is accommodated to the latter. Gregory of
Nyssa may be cited here in order to indicate with what sureness Chris-
tians could appropriate the Song's language of passionate love, and in
order also to exemplify the principle of analogy that we have already
suggested was operative in the employment of erotic imagery by the
writers of divine love. The great wisdom of Solomon (the "author" of
the Song of Songs), Gregory says, is manifested by the fact that he
knew how to use words to signify the opposite of what their literal
sense seems to indicate. In this way the senses and the passions are
made to purify themselves.*® The Song is addressed not to the outer
man and the external senses, but to the inner man and the spiritual
senses; it teaches us then that we have two orders of senses: the one
physical, the other spiritual. Kissing, Gregory writes, is effected by
the sense of touch; in the kiss two pairs of lips meet and touch. But
there is also a higher order or spiritual sense of touch — hence, a
spiritual kiss also — by which one comes into contact with the Word.®’^

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CENTURIES

In the final analysis, it is this concept of an order of spiritual senses,
based on the principle that the activities of the soul (or the spirit) are
analogous but superior to the activities of the body, that makes toler-
able the application of amatory imagery to the description of spiritual
or divine love.

It was Origen of Alexandria who had first given some sort of
systematic expression to the doctrine of the spiritual senses, and
although he betrays Neoplatonic influences, his statement of it is
grounded in the Pauline opposition between the natural and the
spiritual man and in scattered references and images in the Scriptures.
Among the most suggestive of such biblical images is one that exhorts
man to taste and so see (i.e., know) how sweet the Lord is (Ps. 34:9).
The spiritual writers frequently connect this text with the image of the
kiss and, in particular, with the kisses of honey and myrrh of the
Song of Songs (4:11; 5:13). Especially significant here is the fact that
as the spiritual senses are made (in Gregory of Nyssa, for example)
to correspond to various degrees of a mystical nearness or ascent to
God, there is an inversion in the traditional (Platonic) hierarchy of
the senses which placed sight far above all. In the spiritual senses,
sight and hearing are lowest (though not scorned), whereas smell and,
even more, taste and touch are the most exalted. This was a develop-
ment whose importance was to be second to none in the history of
Western mysticism. And with the sense of touch the kiss was the
supreme expression.®®

Thus while it is true that in their descriptions of divine love the
religious writers borrowed heavily from the language of passionate
human love, it is equally true that what may at first seem like the most
dangerous sexual imagery loses all suggestion of a profane and sen-
sual love in the context of their discussions. As we have seen in the
case of Gregory of Nyssa, the mystics and mystical theologians them-
selves, as though anticipating the puzzlement or unholy titillation
their method might cause in less wary readers, invariably call attention
to this basic fact. Centuries after Gregory, for example, Richard of
Saint-Victor notes that the four degrees of violent love are different
"according to whether we speak of divine sentiments or human senti-
ments, for they are not the same in spiritual and carnal desires. In
spiritual desires, the greater the love the better it is; in carnal desires,
the greater the love the worse it is."®* What makes the difference is
not the psychology of love but the specification of the beloved or de-

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

sired object. The language used in describing the two loves is the
same, but curiously (because borrowed from human love), it is more
appropriate in the description of spiritual love. Clearly, then, there
is something about the intimate and intense nature of the mystical
experience that is best conveyed by that language which pertains first
to sexual love.™

The language of the Song of Songs is indeed daring, and if it is
asked how far the Church Fathers and medieval mystics could go in
adopting it in their symbolism of the conjugal relationship between
the soul and God, the answer must be that they could go even beyond
the amatory expressions of the Song, for we should note that almost
invariably what begins as an exegetical treatment becomes a descrip-
tion of experiential knowledge or affective mysticism in which the
Song serves as a stepping-stone and point of reference. In the writings
of the Christians, then, we find the bridal chamber and the embrace
(spiritalis amplexus) and, indeed, the kiss. But spiritual union and
even conception are considered to be the effect not only or primarily
of the embrace, but rather of the kiss. At the very beginning of the
Song of Songs, the mystics and theologians found they had to contend
with the bride's bold request for kisses: "Let him kiss me with the
kisses of his mouth." Even so, the mystics, unlike ordinary lovers,
tend to make of the kiss not merely a preliminary of the love relation-
ship, but love's very terminus.

The Kiss in Marriage Ceremonies

Given the importance of the nuptial idea as the chief though not
the only metaphor within which the theme of the mystic kiss was to
be employed, it will be well, before proceeding further, to consider
briefly the role of the kiss in the betrothal and marriage ceremonies
of the first Christian centuries. The earliest Christian notice of it is by
Tertullian who, in a passing reference to the betrothal of pagan
women, speaks of their becoming mingled with a male both in body
and spirit by way of the kiss and the clasp of the right hands: "Si
autem ad desponsationem velantur (virgenes), quia et corpore et
spiritu masculo mixtae sunt per osculum et dexteras. . . Tertullian
is here referring to a Roman practice, but although he does not say
whether it was at that time a custom kept by Christians, there is every
reason to suppose that this was the case. A little later, for example.

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CENTURIES

St. Ambrose supplies evidence that it was so when, on one of the many
occasions in which he refers to the Church as the bride of Christ, he
notes that unlike the Synagogue the Church has kisses, "for the kiss is,
as it were, the pledge of marriage and the privilege of wedlock. But
another important testimony to its use in Christian betrothal or mar-
riage ceremonies is found in the funerary motif of Psyche and Eros
kissing, used as a symbolical representation of the union and wedding
of the soul and God in Paradise. Such a motif, borrowed, as we have
seen, from paganism, could have been acceptable and meaningful to
Christians only if it reflected a custom that they also shared.

Under Roman law of the Empire, the kiss bestowed by the male
at betrothal gave important juridical rights to the woman, who thereby
became a quasi uxor- thus failure to follow with marriage carried
severe sanctions. So, too, the kiss determined the legality of the dis-
position of betrothal gifts and other property in the event one of
the partners died before marriage.'® It is obvious that the symbolic
value of this kiss depends upon the deeply rooted idea of the kiss as a
vehicle for the transference or exchange of power or "souls." The
fact that the kiss was what solemnized the promise to wed indicates
that on such occasions it must have been felt to effect a psychophysical
union of two in one. Whether Tertullian approved of the practice or
not, his words show clearly enough that in his time it was thought of
in this way. To be sure, this feeling could be weakened in time, making
the betrothal kiss appear more or less a formality in the rite and
therefore in need of the support of the law. But this is also a proof
that at the time of the law the kiss must have yet retained some quasi-
magical or even religious value, for otherwise the law would have
been totally unrealistic. In any case, for Christians under the Empire,
the sense of a psychophysical value attached to the betrothal or wed-
ding kiss must have been enhanced, if anything, in the light of the place
the holy kiss had in their religious life and St. Paul's idea that human
marriage is a union of two in one flesh and a symbol of the mystical
union between Christ and the Church.

In Christianity the kiss eventually became part of the wedding
ceremony because as the betrothal ceremony was more and more
neglected some of its ritual (such as the kiss, the joining of hands,
the exchange of rings — which originally was a single giving of the
ring by the man to the woman) was incorporated into the actual mar-
riage rite.’^^ The exchange of the wedding kiss by the newly married

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

couple at the Nuptial Mass persisted throughout the Middle Ages
although it was often transformed into the liturgical kiss of peace,
partly perhaps under the influence of changing notions of propriety,
but also because of the desire to impress upon the minds of the mar-
ried couple the idea of the sanctity of the union/®

The Kiss Symbolism of Origen and St. Ambrose

In the history of Christian spirituality, Origen occupies a place
of first importance, not because he was the first Christian mystic, an
honor belonging to St. Paul, but because he gave the first important
impetus to a systematization of the Christian mystic experience, a feat
he accomplished in his Commentary to the Song of Songs. According
to Origen, perfect knowledge or perfect unity is the subject of the
Song of Songs. Origen was not the first Christian to explicate the Song,
but he was the first to interpret it allegorically not only as the union
between the Church and Christ, but as the union of the individual
soul and the Word as well.'® Although he insists upon the necessity of
love as a motive force in the soul's quest for union, for him the mystic
way is fundamentally an intellectual process rather than an affective
experience such as we find, say, in St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Thus the
request for the Bridegroom's kiss made by the soul-bride, "Let him
kiss me with the kisses of his Mouth," is the prayer of the soul for
an illuminating grace. Specifically, the theme of the Song in the indi-
vidual interpretation is that of the soul desiring to penetrate into the
mysteries of the Word; but these mysteries which are contained within
the sacred writings are not easily perceived. Reason, free will, and
natural law, which are the bride's betrothal gifts, do not suffice. Nor
is the teaching of masters enough to bring her to the full satisfaction
of her desire for understanding. Thus she prays for the direct visitation
of the Word of God that she may be fully illuminated. This is to enter
into the Bridegroom's chamber and to be kissed. Therefore, when her
mind (mens) is filled with divine perception and understanding ob-
tained without the ministration of men or angels, then she may be
sure she has received the kisses of the Word of God. For this reason,
for the sake of these kisses, let the soul praying to God say: Osculetur
me ah osculo oris sui.’’’’

The image of the kiss as a symbol of the culminating moment of
a process which, its mystical quality notwithstanding, is intellectually

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CENTURIES

orientated, has allowed Origen to introduce into his discussion the
suggestion of a direct experiential contact between soul and God (as
the Word) within a personal relationship. At the same time, the affec-
tive side of the experience is also enhanced as Origen goes on to eluci-
date the meaning of the "mouth" of the Bridegroom. To be noted here
is the fact that the Bridegroom is the Word. The connection between
word and mouth is one that comes naturally, and in a spiritual or
mystic sense, the Word too would have a Mouth: "By the mouth of
the Bridegroom we understand the power of God by which He en-
lightens her mind and, as by some word or other of love spoken to her
(if she be worthy of bearing the presence of so great a power), makes
clear to her whatever is unknown and obscure. This is that truer,
closer and holier kiss which is said to be offered by the Bridegroom —
the Word of God — to the bride, that is, to the pure and perfect soul.
It is of this circumstance that the kiss we exchange with each other
in church at the time of the mysteries is a figure."^® It is most inter-
esting to see Origen pointing to a connection between his allegorized
kiss of the Song and the liturgical kiss of peace in a way that suggests
the latter to be a figure (imago) of the former; the kiss the brethren give
one another at the time of the liturgical celebration of the mysteries is,
as it were, a copy or symbol of the greater kiss (union) between God
and the soul. This manner of thinking is in keeping with Paul's state-
ment that the conjugal union of man and wife is a figure of the greater
mystical union between Christ and the Church.

Of equal importance in Origen's exegesis is the fact that his appli-
cation of the kiss image to figure the fundamental Christian concept
of illumination as an infusion of grace serves to put into clear focus
the idea that knowledge of divine things is intimately associated with
love. The Christian view of Spirit (Pnenma) is one which, like that of
Philo and the Gnostics, sees it also as a divine light granted to man
for the purpose of revealing to him truths he could never perceive by
means of his own limited powers.^® Now grace of any kind is always
understood by the theologians to signify the presence of the Spirit
by an infusion of God's love (infiisio caritatis). Hence we see the ap-
propriateness of the kiss image here. The kiss is the symbolic vehicle
for the infusion of that breath of love which, in mystical theology, is
the Breath (Spirit) of the Deity.

St. Ambrose is a pivotal figure in the development of Christian

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

kiss symbolism. Since it was he who introduced the ideas of Origen
(whose works he knew in the Greek) into Western Christianity, we
are not surprised to see that the kiss appears in his writings as a symbol
of the infusion of an illuminating grace into the purified and enamored
soul. For Ambrose, too, the kiss signifies the knowledge of divine
things and the presence of the Word in the soul. But what is especially
noteworthy is that with him the kiss image takes on an even greater
erotic character than it has in Origen. The soul is depicted as being
lovesick and in yearning, impatient for the Beloved's visit and kisses.
Nor can it be satisfied with one kiss; it is like a woman in love who
implores many kisses and with each kiss abandons herself more and
more completely to her love.®® By means of such an allegorization,
Ambrose translates a matter of orthodox theology into the language
of passionate human love.

For our consideration, a most significant point is the fact that
Ambrose justifies the image of the allegorical kiss of union on the
grounds that in the real corporeal kiss itself lovers join and mingle
spirits. In kissing, he says, lovers adhere to one another and enjoy the
sweetness of an interior grace. By just such a kiss the soul cleaves to
and unites with the Word, whose Breath passes into it. Ambrose goes
so nonchalantly from the kiss of earthly lovers to the kiss between
the soul and God that we are under the impression that he is talking
about a real kiss. The kiss between the soul and God is again com-
pared to that given by lovers who, being unsatisfied with the mere
enjoyment of the lips, kiss so deeply as to interchange their spirits
with one another;

Osculum est enim quo invicem amantes sibi adhaerent, et velut gratiae
interioris suavitate potiuntur. Per hoc osculum adhaeret anima Deo
Verbo, per quod sibi transfunditur spiritus osculantis: sicut etiam ii
qui se osculantur, non sunt labiorum praelibatione contend, sed
spiritum suum sibi invicem videntur infundere.^

Of course, we know that the human lovers in Ambrose's passage
are mingling breaths with one another. The parallel made between
their kiss and the allegorical mystic kiss depends upon the pluralistic

^ For a kiss is that by which lovers mutually adhere to one another and take
possession [of each other] as if by the sweetness of an interior grace. By this kiss
the soul adheres to Cod the Word, by this kiss the breath-spirit of him who kisses
is transfused into it [the soul]; just as those who kiss one another are not content
with the tasting of their lips but seem to pour their spirits into one another."
PL 14, 531-532.

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CENTURIES

meaning of the words spirit and soul. In Latin both words — spiritus
and anima — carry an earlier meaning of breath but also the significance
of the immaterial stuff of spirit and soul. But beyond this, yet con-
nected with it, is the fact that here Ambrose brings us directly into
the heart of Pauline pneumatology. Paul taught that a union between
the soul and God could take place on the level of the transcendent
Spirit, but only insofar as a man has been pneumatized, impregnated
by the divine Spirit. Only he who "receives the Spirit of God" may
attain to union and divine knowledge, because only the Spirit reaches
into the deepest things of God (I Cor. 2:10-16). Ambrose's description
of the mystic kiss of the Song is built upon such Pauline concepts.
Thus we find at the very core of his description one of Paul's most
deeply and radically mystical utterances, a text of incalculable impor-
tance in the development of Christian spirituality: "He who clings
unto the Lord is one spirit with him" (I Cor. 6:17). (The Vulgate has
"Qui autem adhaeret Domino, unus spiritus est.") Ambrose, however,
has brought the text into conjunction with the Song of Songs so that
Paul's already extraordinary thought is now fully eroticized. It is by
way of a kiss that the soul cleaves to and unites with God — per hoc
osculum adhaeret anima Deo Verbo — for that is the way lovers (such
are God and the soul) effect their transforming union.

In another context, Ambrose clearly states that to be infused with
a special grace, or — what comes to the same thing — to receive the
Spirit, is to kiss Christ, an interpretation which, curiously, is applied
to Psalm 118:131: "Concerning the same infusion of special grace
Scripture teaches you that he who receives the Spirit kisses Christ, as
the holy Prophet says: / opened my mouth and drew in the Spirit.

The Kiss and the Eucharistic Banquet

Earlier we noted that the liturgical kiss of peace was exchanged
by the brethren as a preparation to Eucharistic communion. A text
from Ambrose will show also that Christians could think of this holiest
of sacraments as itself being a kiss. Communion, we know, is thought
of as continuing the process begun by baptism of the incorporation
and transformation of the faithful into Christ, but it is at the same
time a coming of Christ into the communicant. It is this sacramental
union that Ambrose refers to as a kiss when he states that the words
"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth" may be understood

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

either as an invitation made by Christ to the communicant or as a
just request made by the communicant to Christ:

You have approached the altar, and the Lord Jesus now calls you
(both you and the Church) and says : "Let him kiss me with the kisses
of his mouth." Would you apply that to Christ? Nothing is more pleas-
ing. To your soul? Nothing is sweeter. "Let him kiss me." He sees that
you are pure of all sin, for your wrongs have been cleansed away. Thus
he holds you worthy of the heavenly sacraments and invites you to
the heavenly banquet: "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth."
And yet because of what follows, your soul or the Church seeing that
it is purified of all sins and worthy enough to come to the altar — for
the altar, in fact, is the form or figure of the body of Christ — and seeing
the wonderful sacraments, says: "May Christ impress a kiss upon

me ."«2

This particular accommodation of the kiss symbolism to the
Eucharistic communion is even more erotically drawn by the fifth cen-
tury bishop of Cyrrhus, Theodoret, who explicitly fits it into the context
of the idea of spiritual nuptials. The passage, in fact, occurs in Theo-
doret's own Commentary on the Song of Songs when he is explicating
and justifying the use of the kiss as a religious symbol: "Should any-
one whose thoughts are base be troubled by the term kiss, let him con-
sider that at the moment of the sacrament when we receive the members
of the Spouse, we kiss and embrace him . . . and we imagine a kind of
nuptial embrace; we consider that we unite ourselves to him by em-
bracing and kissing him, for as the Scriptures say, love casts out fear."®®
Thus we see that in the minds of authoritative Christians there
was a connection between the rite of communion and the idea of
spiritual nuptials. Insofar as this is true, one may speak of the sacred
rite as being felt to be a kind of hieros gamos, effected, however, by a
direct union with the Deity, not through an intermediary agent as in
the ancient fertility cults of the Near East and in the Hellenistic mys-
teries.®^

St. Augustine and Divine Love

In turning to St. Augustine one must express some wonder that
the great saint — in whose writings the kiss of peace, nuptial sym-
bolism, and references to the Song of Songs figure prominently — does
not once quote or comment directly on the first verse of the Song.®®

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CENTURIES

It is hardly to be thought that Augustine refrained from commenting
directly on the bride's kisses because of a reticence to apply the lan-
guage of human love to spiritual matters, for he is, in fact, one of the
richest Christian sources for this tendency. Indeed, there is in his
writings an extraordinary passage in which he makes use of the most
daring imagery of erotic love outside the area of nuptial symbolism.
In the page in question Christ is feminized into the personified figure
of Truth, or better, Sophia, and the relations of men with this Lady
Wisdom are described in terms of chaste love embraces:

In truth or wisdom, then, we possess that which we can all enjoy in
common. There is no lack or defect in her. She receives all her suitors
{amatores) without arousing jealousy in them; she is shared by all, and
with each she is chaste. No one says to another: get back so I may
approach, take your hands away that I may embrace her. All cling
to her, all hold her at the same time. Hers is a food that is in no way
divided; you drink nothing from her that I cannot drink. When you
partake of her, nothing becomes your exclusive possession, for what
you take of her remains entirely for me too. I do not wait for you
to return what she has breathed into you in order to be inspired in
turn.®®

Here then Sophia appears as an inexhaustible life-giving source —
one may even say goddess — to all who would love her. Since she
belongs to all and loses none of her infinite breath in the intercourse
she has with any individual, there is no jealousy among her suitors.
Now although there is no direct mention of a kiss in Augustine's words,
the sense of the passage seems to require it. In addition to the fact
that the embrace of lovers naturally suggests an accompanying kiss,
the reference to Sophia's breathing into her lovers — during an em-
brace! — makes it clear that we have to do once again with a case of
the infusion of spirit (the "Spirit" of Wisdom) by way of a kiss:
"Quod te inspirat non exspecto ut reddatur abs te, et sic ego inspirer
ex eo."

Such a representation of Wisdom is not an isolated example in
Augustine's writings. A similar account occurs in the Soliloquia, where
it is said that the lover of Wisdom desires to see and embrace her
in her beautiful nakedness. Of course, hers is a chaste beauty, and
she grants her favors only to those who are devoted to her alone. In
these passages Augustine is drawing on the sapiential books of the
Bible. For example, for a moment in the Book of Proverbs, Wisdom

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

figures as a goddess when she is made to say "1 will pour out my spirit
upon you" (1:23), and in the Book of Wisdom (6:13-21) she is shown
as a woman hastening to meet those that seek her. As we have sug-
gested, however, Augustine's Sophia is both a divine hypostasis and
an allegory of Christ ; and this is in keeping with Paul's identification
of Christ with Wisdom (I Cor. 1:23-24). This being so, we can say
that in Augustine's passages we do have an allegorical representation
of the amatory relationship between the Deity and the individual soul
which is not unlike that described in the mystical exegeses of the Song
of Songs.*® An interesting difference would seem to be that in Augus-
tine's words the Christian soul figures as a male principle and wooer,
for Sophia, after all, is feminine — in fact, the very she-soul of Chris-
tianity. Though his figure of Sophia has some of the earmarks of the
great Mother-Goddess who is Divine Harlot and yet perpetually chaste,
such as is found in the earliest religions of the Near East and in some
Gnostic sects of the early Christian centuries, it is also true that in
these encounters it is Augustine (or the soul as he has represented it)
who needs and yearns for fulfillment in the kiss, much in the same
way as does the bride-soul in the Christian exegetical treatment of the
Song. In this description of the hieros games the vital spiritual force
is given by Sophia-Christ. In relation to its Creator, the Christian soul
has a feminine psyche, a fact which is preeminently true of Augustine,
who, it is worth remembering, in the field of apologetics is a model of
virile and combative Christianity.

But there is yet another text which shows Augustine in the guise
of the yearning bride-soul burning with desire for the divine kiss,
although again, as in the passages we have just studied, the kiss image
is not immediately obvious to modern readers. And yet it is one of
the best-known and most lyrical passages in the entire corpus of the
saint's writings: the magnificent "Sero te amavi" from the Confessions
(X, 27) in which Augustine tells of his anxious search and finding
out of God.

Too late did I love Thee, O Fairness, so ancient and yet so new! Too
late did I love Thee! For behold Thou wert within, and I without, and
there did I seek Thee; I unlovely, rushed heedlessly among the things
of beauty Thou madest. Thou wert with me, but I was not with Thee.
Those things kept me far from Thee, which unless they were in Thee,
were not. Thou calledst, and criedst aloud, and forcedst open my
deafness. Thou didst gleam and shine, and chase away my blindness.

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CENTURIES

Thou didst exhale odors, and I drew in my breath and do pant after

Thee. I tasted, and do hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and

I burned for Thy peace [tetigisti me et exarsi in pacem tuam)?^

It cannot escape the reader that this text is a superb example of
the doctrine of the spiritual senses and the inner as opposed to the
outer man. The last part of the passage describes a progressive march
toward God or, if one prefers, God's conquest of the saint's soul and,
in doing so, employs an ascensive hierarchy of the five senses by which
the Deity is seen to invade the inner man. The order is hearing, sight,
smell, taste, and finally, touch, in which sense the experience culmi-
nates. At the same time, the intense spiritual experience is accom-
modated to the sensuous imagery and vocabulary of the love passion,
and here the echoes of the Song, which revels in the amoristic delights
of the several senses, are surely heard. The voice, the beauty (visible to
the "eye"), the fragrance, and the sweetness of the beloved are in
Augustine's passage as they are in the Song. And so, too, I believe, is
the kiss, or better, the embrace and the kiss. What perhaps keeps us
from seeing this is the absence of the word kiss. Augustine, however,
has used a "synonym" for it in the word peace. The formulae Pax
tecum and Pax vobiscum were signals for the exchange of the liturgical
kiss of peace, and the osculum pads was itself known simply by the
word Pax; from this it was not a great step to referring to a kiss in
general by the same term. The word for kiss in Gaelic, for example,
is from the Pax. But it is specifically the connection between the theo-
logical concept of peace and the kiss of lovers that is relevant here.
We earlier noted that Origen had related the liturgical kiss of peace
to the kiss yearned for by the bride. The bride of the Song pleads for
the kiss and embrace that would quiet her desires: that is, for the
peace that is union and blessed fulfillment. This is the peace or kiss
that Augustine burned for after being touched by the Deity. And he
burns for it yet, as is suggested by the phrase in pacem (in plus the
accusative). That is because he has already experienced something
of it. Just as Augustine inhaled the fragrance exhaled by the Deity
and now pants after that divine odor, and just as he tasted and now
hungers and thirsts after the sweetness of the Lord, so too he was
touched by the Lord and now burns for the fulfillment of that touch:
"Tetigisti me et exarsi in pacem tuam." We saw earlier that when
Gregory of Nyssa, one of the first theologians of the divine sweetness,
contrasted the two orders of senses, he exemplified the sense of touch

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

by the kiss. On the other hand, when, shortly before the passage under
discussion, Augustine introduced the doctrine of the spiritual senses
and the inner man, he associated the sense of touch more specifically
with an embrace, though this could indeed include a kiss: "amo Deum
meum . . . amplexum interioris hominis mei."®“ At any rate, if we wish
to keep the correspondence between that passage and the present one,
then we must allow that here too the "touch" signifies an embrace.
Let us not forget that it is a lover, and one who would be loved in
return, that speaks, and also that love, as the spiritual writers were
fond of noting, casts out fear. Then we too may without fear suggest
the following to be the meaning of Augustine's climactic prayer and
ecstatic vision: "Thou didst embrace me and inflame me; and I burn
for (the peace of) thy kiss."

2. JVtedieval JvtysHcs

ollowing the period of the Church Fathers, there is no con-
spicuous use of kiss symbolism until the twelfth century,
which age can be said to mark an apogee in its develop-
ment. The reason for this is not difficult to ascertain. The
twelfth century is one of the decisive periods in the evolution of
Western man's psychological life, especially in the awakening to the
life of the sentiments. The century abounds in treatises that seek to
explain the complex stirrings and movements of the heart, and the
passionate investigation into the psyche of man tends to be focused
on the phenomenon of love precisely because the center of the inner
life of man is recognized to be love. "The heart's life," says Hugh of
Saint-Victor, "is love, hence it is wholly impossible that there be a
heart wishing to live without love."* Accordingly, love is studied in
all its aspects from brute carnal appetite to spiritual love of friend and
God. As is well known, to the plethora of religiously inspired writings
on love there is an important secular counterpart in the poetry and
romances of the age. But even if one were interested only in the
human side of the question, as much is to be learned about the nature
of love and its psychological or psychophysical repercussions in the
lover from the churchmen of the twelfth century as from their secular
brethren.

As studied by the spiritual authors, the psychological life of man
is naturally considered in relation to man's position vis-a-vis God as
the supreme object and subject of love. It is therefore a psychology
that cannot be understood without taking into account what is, after
all, its terminus ad quern, the experience and notion of ecstasy.^ One
might say that in their descriptions of divine love the mystics at least
are interested primarily in recording an experiential knowledge of God
and only secondarily in the psychological life of man. The point is,
however, that they excel in portraying the latter because they are
talking about an experience-, in the matter of affective mysticism,
speculation and experience are one. The affective mysticism which
reaches its zenith in the twelfth century is connected with the Song
of Songs either by way of direct exegeses of that book or by the bor-

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

rowing of its imagery for other kinds of mystical writings. In the
application of the metaphor of spiritual nuptials few have been as
impassioned and coherent as St. Bernard of Clairvaux; in the use of
kiss symbolism no one has approached him. For this reason, even
within the limited area of our concern, he must occupy a large place.

The Kiss Symbolism of St. Bernard

Two of the most religiously charged terms in the Christian vocabu-
lary are peace and love. The connection between the kiss and the
notion of peace is never forgotten by the mystics. For this reason they
always see a tie between the mystical kiss of the bride-soul and the
liturgical kiss of peace. Thus, although it may come as no surprise, it
is nonetheless significant that almost at the outset of his Sermons on
the Song, Bernard calls attention to the theme of peace in relation to
the kiss motif that opens the Canticle. Commenting on the very title
of the book, which, he says, is The Beginning of Solomon's Canticle
of Canticles, Bernard writes: "Observe first how proper it is that the
name of the Peaceful One, which is what Solomon means, is at the
head of a book that has its beginning in a sign of peace, that is, in a
kiss."'^ For the Christian, as Origen long before had noted, Solomon,
the Peaceful One, was a type of Christ.^ This idea is carried on in
the second Sermon where Bernard identifies the kiss of the Song with
the Incarnate God, Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. It is here that the
saint introduces a subtle distinction between the kiss of the Mouth and
the kiss of the Kiss. The Mouth is the eternal Word, to be kissed by
whom was the unique prerogative of the assiimptus homo. The Word
assuming is the os osculans (the Mouth that kisses), the flesh assumed
is the osciilatiirn (the mouth that is kissed); the Kiss in which the
two meet and become one — for such is the function of a kiss — is
the persona compacted of the two. Bernard then says that the most
one can aspire to is to be kissed by this Kiss which is the Incarnate
Word, Christ Jesus, the mediator between God and man. This Kiss,
which is the Incarnation, is an extraordinary act of love and condescen-
sion to mankind, the meaning of which is explicated in terms of the
fulfillment of the biblical promise of peace when Bernard introduces
two texts of Paul. The joining of lips expresses the embrace of souls
or hearts; but this Kiss unites the divine and human nature thereby
making peace between the things of earth and heaven, for He is our

MEDIEVAL MYSTICS

Peace who has made one out of both.^ The rest of the second Sermon
goes on to illustrate that the kiss of the Song refers to the Princeps
pads, who has finally come to quiet the querulous voices of those who
were sorely lamenting that the promised peace and the Messiah proph-
esied by the prophets had not yet arrived.®

The second Sermon, then, interprets the kiss of the Song as the
hypostatic union in Christ. Important as this is, it is not the most
characteristic feature of Bernard's kiss symbolism. In the sermons that
follow, the kiss is considered principally within the context of the
betrothal of the soul and the Word or Christ.^ Here Bernard leaves
the realm of strict exegesis for that of experimental mysticism. In this
context Christ is no longer the kiss itself, although it is he who gives
it to the bride-soul. That is, the role of Mediator remains uniquely his.

In Bernard's discussion of the mystic itinerary, each of the three
major stages is signified by a particular kiss image: the purgative stage
is figured by the kissing of Christ's feet, the illuminative stage by the
kiss of Christ's hands, and, finally, the moment of union itself is indi-
cated by the kiss of Christ's mouth. Since these kisses are progressive,
the soul must have attained the first two before being ready to receive
the unitive kiss. Only then, says Bernard tremblingly, "We perhaps
may dare to reach to that glorious Mouth, not solely to contemplate it,
but even to kiss it; for Christ the Lord is a Spirit before our face, with
whom, and by whose grace, we will be made one Spirit by cleaving to
him in a holy kiss."® As in the passage from St. Ambrose, so here we
note that the kiss image is built upon Paul's great mystical utterance,
thereby heightening the idea that spiritual union with Christ is an
act of love.

For Bernard, however, the bride-soul cannot or should not aspire
to kiss the Mouth proper {oscidum ah ore). Just as in Sermon II the
kiss of the Mouth proper was reserved to the assumptus homo, the
Christ-man, here it is a kiss reserved to the Father and the Son, with
the Father as osculans and the Son as osculatus. To be kissed by the
Mouth would be to know God in essence, that is, in the same way
that the Father and the Son know one another. Hence the bride's re-
quest is more modest: to be kissed with the Bridegroom's Kiss, not
with his Mouth. But this is no mean desire inasmuch as the Kiss is
nothing less than the Third Person of the Trinity — the Holy Spirit:
"If it is so that the Father is the one that kisses, and the Son is the one
that is kissed, it will not be wrong to understand the Kiss itself as the

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Holy Spirit, the most tranquil peace of the Father and Son, their indis-
soluble bond, their single love and indivisible unity."® It is no wonder,
then, that St. Bernard says that the supreme gift the bride may receive
— to be kissed "with the Kiss" of the Bridegroom (Christ) — signifies
"to receive the infusion of the Holy Spirit."'® The request for the
kiss is the prayer to be infused with the Spirit. We see by this that
with Bernard the symbolism of the kiss is brought into the very heart
of Trinitarian mysticism. The kiss between the soul and Christ is
modeled on and made possible by a participation in that infinitely
greater Kiss that pertains to the Trinity in a consubstantial way. The
Holy Spirit (Breath) as the unifying principle of love and knowledge by
which the Father and the Son are One is rightly called a Kiss, for the
kiss is by nature, as it were, the perfect affective image of the union in
spirit. God, of course, is Spirit; and the Kiss of the Father and the
Son is the expression of their mutual love and their unity of Spirit.

The same Kiss which is common to the Father and Son is also
the effective agent that draws the human soul into a union with the
Triune God. Yet, Bernard's mysticism is without doubt chiefly Christo-
centric. Christ's role is essential in bringing the soul to the Father.
Hence, Christ gives the Kiss to the soul. The importance of this is
heightened in the light of the fact that Bernard bases the image and
the concept upon the Latin Church's doctrine that the Holy Spirit
proceeds from the Son as well as from the Father. Thus it is worth
noting how Bernard adduces scriptural evidence for the idea of the
transmitting of the Spirit by way of the Son. Commenting on John
20:22, where it is said that Jesus breathed upon the Apostles with the
words "Receive the Holy Spirit," he observes that this was a kiss that
the Lord gave the Apostles, that is, the primitive Church. Not the mate-
rial breath of Jesus was the kiss but the invisible Spirit which was
conveyed by it:

Behold a young bride receiving the new kiss, not from the Mouth,
but from the kiss of the Mouth. "He breathed on them," it is said
(John 20:22), that is, Jesus on the Apostles, the Primitive Church;
and he said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." That was indeed a kiss he gave.
What? Was it the corporeal breath {flatus)? No, rather the invisible
Breath {Spiritus) which was given by way of the Lord's breathing, so
that we would understand that he proceeds from him (the Son) equally
as from the Father, like a true kiss that is common to the one who
kisses and to the one who is kissed."

MEDIEVAL MYSTICS

The Holy Spirit, then, is the Kiss of the Mouth of the Father and
of the Son; and so, "it is enough for the bride [Bernard is again speak-
ing of the soul] to be kissed with the Kiss of the Bridegroom, even
if not by his Mouth." In this Kiss the Father and the Son are made
known to the bride in a privileged but participatory way. The bride
asks this boon of the Son, for it belongs to the Son to reveal the Father
to whomsoever he will. In revealing himself, the Son also reveals the
Father. "Without doubt, the Son reveals this by way of a Kiss, that
is, by the Holy Spirit."^" No creature may claim of its relationship to
God what is true of the relationship between the Father and the Son
who kiss one another as equals. The creature's union with God is not
consubstantial; the kiss is given to it as a privilege. Thus not even the
great Paul, when he was rapt to the third heaven, received the kiss
of the Mouth, but only the kiss of the Kiss. Great as he was, Paul could
not raise his lips to those of the Most High. A kiss had to be sent down
to him from above.

It is significant that Paul's mystic rapture is translated by Bernard
into the language of kiss symbolism. Again we see how the kiss image
brings into relief the affective nature of a saint's relationship to God.
For Christian spirituality, Paul and Moses are understandably the
great examples of souls privileged to have had a special encounter and
union with God. Both are spoken of as great lovers of the Lord, and
just as Bernard could speak of Paul's rapture as a kiss, so too the face-
to-face meeting of Moses and God could become a kiss of union.

Bernard himself explains why the image of the kiss is proper in
the description of abtruse theological questions when he makes the
connection between knowledge and love: "That is true knowledge
which is given by means of a kiss, and is received with love, for the
kiss is a token of love."^® The soul, moreover, not only accepts the
kiss with love, but yearns for and solicits it from the Bridegroom. It
is within the context of this motus of the soul's desire that Bernard's
kiss symbolism takes on erotic coloring. The soul can never merit the
kiss unless it desires it as a lover who craves with an all-consuming
passion and will be satisfied with nothing less than the unifying kiss
itself:

"Let Him kiss me with the kiss of His Mouth." Who speaks thus?
The bride. Who is this bride? It is the soul thirsting for God . . . She
that solicits a kiss is in love. Of all the natural sentiments that of love
is the most excellent, especially when it returns to its source which is

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

God . . . The bride-soul in love asks for a kiss. She does not ask for
liberty, nor for a reward (mercedem), nor for an inheritance, not even
for learning, but for the kiss.^®

Such is the soul's yearning that it becontes unabashed and unrestrained
in its cry for the unitive kiss. It is grateful but not appeased by the
privilege of kissing the Feet and the Hands: "I can have no rest until
he kisses me with the kiss of his Mouth ... I am not ungrateful, but I
love. I admit I have received beyond my merit, but it is too little for
my desire. I am carried by my desire, not by reason" {Desiderio feror,
non ratione)}^

While it is true that in such passages as these love seems to take
precedence over knowledge in the soul's way to God, such passionate
protestations must not keep us from seeing that Bernard does not
always exclude reason from the experience of mystical union. On the
contrary, for the saint the soul's spiritual apprehension of God at the
apex of contemplation necessitates an active participation of both the
will and the intelligence. Even this important idea is translated into
the language of kiss symbolism. Both those who think they know truth
without loving it and those who claim to love it without understanding
are incapable and unworthy of receiving the holy Kiss which admits
of neither error nor tepidity. The bride (i.e., soul) who would receive
it must give herself completely; she must offer both of her lips, that
is, both reason and will.*® The bond between love and knowledge
could not be closer.

Before leaving Bernard, there is another aspect of his kiss sym-
bolism to be considered. As he follows through the symbolism of mysti-
cal marriage between the soul and God, the saint does not hesitate to
speak of the bride's impregnation and fecundity. The bride conceives
and her breasts grow full with the milk that will be fed to the chil-
dren she is to bear. (The spiritual children she is to bear are the good
works born of and carried out in Charity.)*® Now although the image
of the mystical embrace is common in Bernard, here in the description
of spiritual conception it is the infusion of the Spirit into the soul by a
kiss that effectuates the impregnation of the bride;

While the bride is speaking of her Bridegroom, suddenly, as I have
said, he is present; he grants her desire, gives her the kiss. Proof of
this is the filling of her breasts. Such is the efficacy of this kiss that as
soon as she receives it the bride conceives, witness the swelling of her
breasts and the overflow of their milk . . . Wherefore the Bridegroom

MEDIEVAL MYSTICS

may say; "My bride, you have what you pleaded for and the proof of
it for you is that your breasts have become better than wine. Your
evidence of having received the kiss is that you feel you have con-
ceived."^'’

The idea of spiritual union and fruition could hardly find a more seemly
and efficacious image by which to commend itself, for anything beyond
it more suggestive of a sexual union would not convey so accurately
the concept of the unitive relationship as the mystics experience it.
Along with the sense of self-fulfillment it brings, that relationship is
felt as a reciprocal love and mutual indwelling. The image of the inter-
mingling of the breath-soul of the creature with the Breath (Spirit)
of the Creator in a kiss best tells us something of the experiential
nature of the mystic union."^ Our next religious also attests to this.

William of Saint-Thierry and the Song of Songs

Bernard's fellow Cistercian, William of Saint-Thierry, is the
author of an Exposition on the Song of Songs which, for its beauty
and richness of mystical theology, is second only to Bernard's own
sermons on the canticle. Its chief interest for us is in some passages
where the use of kiss symbolism is conciously grounded in the physi-
ology of the real kiss. From the outset, William makes it clear that,
in his explication, the bride and Bridegroom of the Song are to be
understood as the soul and Christ." The request the bride makes for
the kiss of the Bridegroom is an expression of the soul's desire for
direct contact and union with Christ. Here William gives a definition
of the real kiss that is meant to explain its appropriateness as a symbol
for the mystic union: "The kiss is an affectionate external union of
bodies and a sign of and spur to an inner union. By the ministry of the
mouth, it seeks not so much a union of bodies as of spirits (souls)
through a mutual exchange." Although this passage is clearly influ-
enced by that of Ambrose which we have already analyzed, it seems to
me to be more remarkable for its greater suggestion that in the real
kiss it is souls (or at least a psychic substance) that are seeking to
mingle. Certainly something more than mere breath is to be under-
stood by spiritus in this context, for we note that in carrying out the
analogy in the mystic kiss, William says that when Christ kisses the
bride, he draws her "spirit" into himself and in turn infuses his own
"spirit" into her so that by this mutual indwelling the two are made

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

one spirit; “spiritum ejus sibi attrahens, et suum infundens ei, ut
invicem unus spiritus sint."^®

For William, as for Bernard, although Christ is the Bridegroom,
the area in which the soul meets with the Deity is the Holy Spirit.
Here too we find the kiss symbolism used in a description of Trini-
tarian mysticism. The kiss of union experienced by the soul is itself
the Holy Spirit, which is the same Kiss that joins the Father and the
Son in their most intimate and consubstantial unity. Caught up, as
it were, in the unifying Kiss of the Father and the Son, the soul is
rapt into the very heart of the Trinity and even begins to know as she
is known. At the height of this rhapsodic passage, in describing the
unitive kiss received by the soul, William reverts once again to the
analogy of the real kiss. Now, however, rather than Christ, it is said
to be the Creator-Spirit with whom the soul as created spirit seeks
its union; "And like lovers who in their kisses transfuse their souls
(spirits) into one another in a sweet and mutual exchange, so the cre-
ated spirit pours itself entirely into the Spirit that creates it for this very
reason; and into it the Creator-Spirit infuses itself as it wishes, and
man is made one spirit with God."®®

The description emphasizes the infusion of the Spirit into the
soul and the soul's surrender and immersion into the Spirit. It is the
most ecstatic moment, the climax of the unitive life as described by
William, and now, in making the parallel to the real kiss, he speaks
of the latter more explicitly as being a kiss of lovers who in their
ecstacy are made one by the interfusion of their breath-souls. Thus
it is no wonder that the bride-soul cannot be satisfied with any con-
solation short of the embrace and that kiss which is the sweetness of
a mutual union.®® The kiss, William notes, is the most daring and yet
necessary symbolic vehicle by which the soul, in its supreme yearning
and drive, entertains the clarity of God's visage.®^

St. Aelred of Rievaulx and the Kiss of Friendship

St. Aelred of Rievaulx, a younger contemporary and disciple of
St. Bernard, holds a place of great importance not only in the history
of the Church in England, but in the development of the idea of Chris-
tian friendship as well. In his treatise De spirituali amicitia he applies
a trichotomous symbolism of the kiss to three stages of Christian
friendship. In introducing the mystic kiss as a symbol of union be-

MEDIEVAL MYSTICS

tween friends, Aelred is in part inspired by, though he goes beyond,
the liturgical kiss of peace.

Christian friendship between two human beings is an act by
which man carries out on a smaller scale the friendship God offers to
man. Friendship is thus a way of becoming God's friend, and in it
Christ is both the real beginning and the end. It is because God is
Amicitia and because all friendship derives from him that a man may
reach him by way of love and friendship with a fellow creature. Ulti-
mately a friend is loved because of what we perceive to be divine in
him. It is the spiritual climb of the soul to God by way of friendship
that Aelred speaks of in terms of the threefold kiss: physical, spiritual,
and intellectual. When friend unites with friend, says Aelred, the two
become as one heart and one soul rising by love to attain the friend-
ship of Christ and to become one spirit with him in a kiss.'® In its
desire for this unitive kiss, the soul cries out "Osculetur me osculo oris
sui." Like love, friendship is felt to be an ecstatic and unifying experi-
ence, and, for Aelred, in this spiritual experience the kiss offers itself
as a natural symbol because of the unifying nature of the real physi-
cal kiss. Following a traditional Christian expository method of pass-
ing from the natural to the spiritual, Aelred considers, with a kind of
scientific realism, the corporeal kiss to be a real means by which
"spirits" meet and intermingle:

Let us consider the nature of the carnal kiss in order to pass after-
wards from carnal to spiritual things and from the human to the
divine. Our life is sustained by two sustenances: food and air. Now
without food we may yet survive for a time, but without air we can-
not live even for an hour. Consequently, in order to live we breathe in
air with the mouth and then exhale it. It is precisely what is exhaled
or inhaled that has been given the name of spirit. Wherefore in the
kiss two spirits meet and mingle and are joined. And from such kisses,
there arises a certain sweetness of the mind that guides and controls
the affection of those who kiss. Thus there exist the physical kiss, the
spiritual kiss, and the intellectual kiss [Esf igitiir oscuhim corporale,
osculum spiritale osculum intellectuale].^^

Aelred recognizes that the physical kiss is too easily abused and
profaned by the wicked, who indulge in it for the intrinsic sensual
pleasure it gives. When exchanged by the pure, however, it is a natural
and true sign of peace, as it is for the faithful about to partake in
communion at the Mass. It is also proper when given as a sign of affec-

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

tion between man and wife, or even between friends reunited after a
long absence. And it is also a sign of the concord and unity of Chris-
tians, who kiss their guests when receiving them. Nonetheless, in the
context of his discussion of friendship, it is not such symbolical usage
of the real kiss that Aelred has in mind when he speaks of the spiritual
kiss between friends. In describing the physical kiss, Aelred used the
word spirit in its sense of breath. Now for the "spiritual" kiss, he draws
exclusively on the word in its meaning of non-corporeal spirit — soul or
mind {osculiim spiritale conjunctione animorum). This kiss then is
not made by the contact of mouths, but by the affection of the mind;
it is effected not by the joining of lips but by the mingling of souls (or
spirits).®"

The same idea occurs with the same terms — but more lyrically
— in a passage of the Speculum Charitatis where Aelred is mourning
the death of his fellow monk and friend, Simon. Recalling the sweet-
ness of that friendship, Aelred says he used to embrace and kiss Simon,
not, however, by bodily contact and with the lips, but with the heart
and the affection of the mind (i.e., love).®' As is readily seen, Aelred's
"spiritual kiss" of friendship is a pure metaphor just as is the mystic
kiss between the soul and God, but its truly unique feature is that,
unlike the latter, it is adapted to a relationship between two human
beings. In this respect, it anticipates the marriage of minds and the
disembodied kiss of souls that were to be exalted by many a Renais-
sance writer.

Aelred's discussion of friendship is meant as a Christian adapta-
tion of Cicero's treatise on friendship, and certainly the Roman's
thoughts are strewn throughout the Christian writer's work. But there
is, of course, a fundamental difference between the two. That Christ,
the Word made flesh, is the way and terminus of friendship is some-
thing Cicero could not know. For Aelred, on the other hand, the pres-
ence of Christ is so essential to the spiritual union of friends that this
union may be said to be the very kiss of Christ. The thought is devel-
oped in a beautiful image when Aelred says that in the spiritual kiss
between friends, it is really Christ who is kissed or kisses, not with his
own mouth, however, but with the mouth (metaphorically) of the crea-
ture. It is Christ kissing because it is he who inspires that holy affec-
tion in the two friends whereby they feel as one soul in two bodies.
From this Christ-inspired spiritual kiss the lover-friend climbs quite
naturally to a desire for the direct unitive kiss of Christ's own mouth.

MEDIEVAL MYSTICS

This is the osculum intellectuale, which is understood as the infusion
of the grace needed for full union:

Then the mind [mens], familiar and sated with this spiritual kiss, and
knowing that the sweetness comes from Christ, thinks to itself: “Oh,
if he himself would only come"; and yearning for that intellectual
kiss, it calls out with boundless desire, "Let him kiss me with the kiss
of his month." Thus all earthly affections being put to slumber, and
all worldly desires and thoughts silenced, it takes its joy only in the kiss
of Christ and rests in his embrace, exulting and saying: "His left hand
is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me."^'^

At the height of the soul's ascent, when soul and God meet directly,
the experience of orthodox Christian mysticism is verified by Aelred,
for although the soul has made its ascent by way of fellow creatures,
all earthly connections and human affections have been finally and
completely put aside; or, we may say, the friendship between creatures
is totally subsumed under the friendship between creature and Christ.
But whereas, in speaking of the unitive relationship between friends,
Aelred tended to attenuate the amatory connotation of the kiss, w’hen
he comes to the union between God and creature it is the erotic lan-
guage of human love — inspired, as usual, by the Song of Songs — that
is used to describe the theopathetic experience.

friendship and the Tzoo-in-One Sentiment

Given the complementary concern of the present study for the
two-in-one motif, we must add another word here about the friend-
ship theme that Aelred has led us into. Within the context of Aelred's
Christian friendship, the joining of souls refers to the harmony and
love that prevail between two friends who are attracted by a principle
of affinity. The friends are as one, each wishing the perfection and
blessedness of the other as though for himself. The sentiment of two
in one is as important in the history of friendship as it is in the his-
tory of love. For that matter, it is not alw'ays easy to distinguish be-
tween the two sentiments. Plato knew that where there is no reciprocity
there is no friendship {Lysis 212 D). From Aristotle to Cicero and
beyond, thinkers were to say that a friend is another self. Cicero also
notes that in the search for a true friend, one seeks out another “whose
soul he may so mingle with his own as almost to make one out of
two" (et alterum anquirit, cuius animum ita cum suo misceat, ut efficiat

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

paene unum ex duobus. De amicitia, xxi, 8a). St. Ambrose has a Cice-
ronian passage on friendship at the close of his De officiis (III, 22) in
which he too asserts that a friend is a partner in love, with whom one
can join spirits in an intermingling whereby the two become one; a
friend is someone to whom one is joined as to another self.®® And like
Aristotle, Cicero, and Ambrose, St. Augustine tells us that the mark of
true friendship is reached when there is but one soul in two bodies.
One of the most striking pages of the Confessions (IV, 6) — Augustine
was later to retract it — develops this idea when the Bishop recalls his
grief at the death of his friend: "1 was astonished that other mortals
lived, since he whom I loved, as if he would never die, was dead; and
I wondered still more that I, who was to him a second self, could live
when he was dead. Well did one say of his friend, 'Thou half of my
soul,' for I felt that my soul and his soul were but one soul in two
bodies; and, consequently, my life was a horror to me, because I would
not live in half."®'* It was, in all probability, from Augustine that
Aelred derived something of his own lament (or its language) for the
loss of Simon; his words (too many to record here) echo those of
Augustine. The same is true of a part of Bernard's extraordinary
threnody — perhaps unsurpassed even in the literature of profane love
— raised by the saint on the occasion of the death of Gerard, his
brother in the flesh and the spirit. At one point Bernard writes: "My
soul cleaved [adhesit] to his soul, and the two of us were made one
not so much by the tie of consanguinity as by the oneness of our feel-
ings . . . , by the conformity and harmony of our wills."®® And Bernard
even appropriated to this friendship (but we may call it love) the great
theme of Acts 4:32 ("There was one heart and soul in all the com-
pany of believers") in saying that he and Gerard formed "one heart
and one soul," so that death cut through their common soul, dividing
it in two, sending the better part to heaven while laying the lesser
part low in the quagmire of the earth.

The concept of a special bond between two friends creates a slight
problem in a Christian context precisely because, ideally, friendship
should reach out to embrace the entire Christian community. But the
Cistercians could point to Scriptures for justification of the idea of a
unique bond and more intimate relationship between two men. David
and Jonathan, of course, were a conspicuous example of such friend-
ship, and we may recall that these biblical friends are shown to have
kissed. But Aelred argues for an even more exemplary friendship by

MEDIEVAL MYSTICS

pointing to Christ's special affection for "the beloved disciple" John.
Though Christ loved all equally, says Aelred, he nonetheless had a par-
ticular love for John. The thought occurs in the Speculum Charitatis
(Lib. Ill, cap. xxxix) where Aelred speaks of a friend's spiritual kisses as
healing the sickness of our worried hearts.®® We will have occasion, in
the next chapter, to speak of friendship in connection with medieval
love poetry, and again later in discussing the erotic imagery of Marsilio
Ficino's otherwise rigidly correct intellectual masculine friendship.®^

Love and Death: Death hy the Kiss

A matter of the profoundest significance is the association be-
tween the kiss as a symbol of the fulfillment of love's desire and the
theme of death. The medieval proverb holding that "to die of love is
to love too much" is a thought that belongs to the "popular" mind of
the Middle Ages.®® The lovers of God, as Christians from the time of
the first martyrs knew, could never love the Beloved enough.®® Hence
they account it the greatest happiness to be able to die for him. It is
with good cause that the Church has always regarded the martyrs
as its saints par excellence. As examples of the willingness to die for
love, the martyrs are themselves loved and revered as the true imita-
tors of Christ. Their death is a surrender of the self accompanied by
a transport. But if it is true that there is no martyrdom without mys-
ticism, it is equally true that there is no mysticism without martyrdom.
In this sense the medieval mystics see themselves as following the
path of the martyrs, and their mystical dying as patterned on the
mystico-literal death of the martyrs. The same principle of ecstatic love
operates in the two groups as they seek death, secure in the words of
St. Paul, "Where then. Death, is thy sting?" (1 Cor. 15 :55), and anxious
to return the love of Christ by an act of self-immolation. In choosing
love, the mystic, like the martyr, chooses to die.

Both know, in the words of the Song of Songs, that "love is strong
as death" (8:6), a theme found over and over in the writings of the
mystics. It is from this motif that Hugh of Saint-Victor derived the
inspiration for his short but ecstatic paean to Love, De laude Caritatis,
which is so important for its treatment of love in connection with the
idea and theology of martyrdom. Hugh notes that the martyrs went
to their torments unflinchingly, and that their flesh scorned their ex-
ternal wounds to the degree that love had wounded them within. Mar-

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

tyrs and mystics (we are at that point where the titles are equivalent)
desire and glory in the wound caused by love. There are many, says
Hugh, who carry love's piercing arrows in their hearts, longing for
them to be driven in deeper.^®. And Gilbert of Hoy, who continued St.
Bernard's sermons on the Song, exulted at the thought that love not
only wounds, but kills outright since it is as strong as death; "Non
modo vulnerat, sed etiam necat; Fortis est enim ut mors dilectio.'"*^
Thus one of the most accepted truths about the unio mystica is
that it necessitates or effects a death. For Orphic, Christian, and Sufi
lovers, the need to die is axiomatic."*" If the full realization of the
Christian's hope of union with God entails a definitive earthly death,
the unio mystica, which is a preview of that eschatological state of
blessedness, involves an anticipation of death. Whatever one may
think about the mystery of the bodily resurrection in the afterlife,
Christian thinking has been overwhelmingly of the opinion that in
the mystic union the body can have no share.

As concrete examples by which to study the nature of the mystic
union, Christian writers most frequently and most naturally turned to
Moses and Paul. Whether one thought of Paul's rapture as being a
real apprehension of the Divine Essence or merely a foretaste of the
beatitude to be known only after final corporeal death, it was plain
that the experience was such that it could not be had without a kind
of death here and now. Commenting on Paul's words "Whether in
the body or out of the body," St. Augustine, for example, held that sus-
pension of the ordinary mental activity during rapture is a state that
must be considered not merely a sleep but a death; and in his account
of Moses' wish to behold the Essence of God, he explained that the
words of the Deity, "Man shall not see my face and live," speak of
the necessity of a death to this life."*® In a less strictly mystical vein
but in an intensely spiritual sense, Augustine himself yearned for the
death that would bring him to see God's face: "Tell me . . . even for
thy mercy's sake, O Lord my God, what thou art unto me. Say unto
my soul, 'I am thy salvation,' but say it so that I may hear thee. . . .1
will run after the sound of that voice and thereby lay hold on thee.
Hide not thou thy face from me; let me die, that I may see it, lest other-
wise I die because I see it not" (Confessions, I, v).**

For Christians the fundamental text concerning the ecstasy of
death in a mystical sense is Paul's exalted cry: "I am crucified with
Christ. Yet I live; nay, not I, but it is Christ that lives in me" (Gal.

MEDIEVAL MYSTICS

2:19-20). When the Pseudo-Dionysius wished to demonstrate that
the nature of scriptural love (agape) was ecstatic (hence inclusive of
the concept of eras), he cited Paul's words, saying that the great
Apostle thereby proved himself to be a true ecstatic lover who had
gone out of himself into the Beloved and now possessed not his own
life but that of the One for whom he yearned.^^

The equating of the soul's love ecstasy with death in this mystic
sense was made by St. Bernard, for whom the bride's repose in the
embrace of the Beloved is a deathlike sleep. "Therefore," he writes, "1
am not to be thought absurd if I call the bride's ecstasy a death"
(Proinde et ego non absurde sponsae exstasim dixerim mortem).*^
Bernard too aspires to this death which is a transcendence of corporeal
sensations and impressions that endanger the soul's true life. Thus it
is a good death which, instead of depriving one of life, transmutes one's
life into something infinitely better; it is a death which does not make
the body fall but rather causes the soul to be elevated: "Bona mors,
quae vitam non aufert, sed transfert in melius; bona, qua corpus non
cadit, sed anima sublevatur."^^

In William of Saint-Thierry this mystic death is more closely as-
sociated with the image of the kiss itself. When the bride first tastes
the sweetness of the Bridegroom's kiss, she is experiencing but a fore-
taste of the full bliss that is to be known; but her appetite having been
whetted, she desires even now the plenitude of the kiss. Thus, ac-
companying the mystic kiss or resulting from it is the desire to die the
real definitive bodily death: "She wished to die [Dissolvi volebat] and
be with Christ, since having tasted the supreme Good, she did not
deem it necessary to remain in the flesh. Behind this too is St. Paul.
In all such cases of dying, death is a gain, and that gain is union with
Christ, who first loved and who, because of that love, first died for
man. It is no accident that what I have called the fundamental Chris-
tian text connected with the mystic's death-ecstasy speaks of being
with Christ on the Cross.

For the Christian, then, the sting of death was removed by Christ's
death on the Cross. Franciscan spirituality in particular insisted on the
devotion to and contemplation of the Cross (the supreme symbol of
self-sacrifice and death as love's choice) as a way of sharing in the
death by which new life in union with Christ is gained.^® In carrying
forward a trend of Bernardine piety, this movement also contributed
to the erotization of the Cross itself. Thus in a passage inviting us to

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

the love and contemplation of the Cross, St. Bonaventura attributes to
St. Bernard the description of the crucified Christ in the attitude of
a lover: “Behold, Bernard says, Christ's head leaning down to kiss us,
his arms extended to embrace us, his hands pierced to make us a gift,
his side open for the sake of loving, his whole body disposed to a
giving. We see then that the picture of the suffering and sacrificial
Christ nailed to the Cross did not exclude the idea of Christ as both
Lover and Beloved. On the contrary, inasmuch as the Crucifixion signi-
fied the greatest act of love, Christ appears on the Cross as the very
apotheosis and form of Love, the Supreme Martyr. But this eroticism
of the Cross and death is not unique to Bernardine and Franciscan devo-
tional ardor. It occurs early in Christian speculation and, as one ought
perhaps to expect, in a way that connects the Cross with the marriage
metaphor. Like Christ's death, the consummation of marriage involves
a sacrificial act.

One of the most remarkable pronouncements in the area of nuptial
Christology was made by St. Augustine when he interpreted Christ's
real death on the Cross as the consummation of his marriage with the
bride. In consenting to impregnation by the Holy Spirit, Mary won
the eternal gratitude of mankind. Her faith gave access to the Divinity,
for in her womb, as in a nuptial chamber, God prepared the marriage
of the Son. But if the birth of Christ from the Virgin Mary betokened
the wedding of the Word and Humanity (i.e., the Church), the mar-
riage was not consummated until Calvary:

Like a bridegroom, Christ came forth from his chamber, and with a
presage of his nuptials he went into the field of the world. He bounded
like a giant exulting on his way; he reached the marriage-couch of the
Cross, mounting it, and there he consummated his marriage. When he
heard the sighs of the creature, by a compassionate exchange he sur-
rendered himself to the torment in place of his bride. Like a ruby he
offered up the carbuncle, and thereby forever joined the woman to
himself, “I have betrothed you to one spouse," the apostle says, "that
I might present you to Christ as a chaste virgin" (II Cor. 11:2). Be-
hold now how she who was once ugly is now beautiful . . . Therefore,
oh brethren, let us rejoice in this union of God and man, of Bridegroom
and bride, of Christ and the Church, of the Saviour and the Virgin.®^

As is indicated by the reference to II Corinthians 11:2, the mar-
riage metaphor as applied here to the Cross depends ultimately on

MEDIEVAL MYSTICS

St. Paul's view of the relation between Christ and Church as a mystic
marriage. In this respect the more significant reference is the great
passage from Ephesians which sets up that mystic marriage as the
archetype for the marriage of the human couple. There it is stated that
Christ suffered and died for the sake of the bride (the Church) : "Hus-
bands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church, and de-
livered himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, cleansing her in
the bath of water by means of the word; in order that he might present
to himself the Church in all her glory, not having spot or wrinkle"
(5:25-27). The Cross, then, is the true epiphany of love. In Augustine's
text the self-immolation of Christ appears as the mystical enactment
of a redemptive and salvific hieros gamos.

The Crucifixion revealed the intensity of the Bridegroom's love;
the bride — collectively and individually — must love in return with
equal ardor. In the thirteenth century, the Franciscan affective mysti-
cism that centered its life in the reenactment of this hierogamotic death
received its most dramatic accents in the vernacular poetry of the Um-
brian poet and mystic, Jacopone da Todi. The following single stanza
contains the more important religio-erotic conceits that we have been
tracing in the present work:

Amor, amor, lesii desideroso.

Amor, voglio morire te abbracciando.

Amor, amor, lesu, dolce mio sposo.

Amor, amor, la morte t'ademando;

Amor, amor, lesii si delettoso,

Tu me t'arrendi en te me trasformando.®

This is a passionate appeal for that mystic kiss (as usual, the image of
a lovers' embrace indicates a kiss) by which the lover dies into union
with Christ; it is the yearning of the lover for the transformation of the
self into the beloved. This very transformation and surrender of the
self the lover knows to be possession: "Tu me t'arrendi en te me tras-
formando."®-

Before leaving Jacopone it will be worthwhile to observe how this
theme of the transformation or mystic conversion of lovers is dealt

'“"Love, love, longed for Jesus; love, I vearn to die embracing thee; love, love,
Jesus, my sweet bridegroom; love, love, I implore thee for death; love, love, Jesus
so beloved, thou givest thyself to me by transforming me into thee." Lattdi, trattato
e detti, ed. Franca Ageno (Florence, 1953), p. 378.

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

with by him in a poem about St. Francis. In keeping with Bonaventura's
account of the life of Francis, Jacopone understands the stigmatization
of the saint as a transformation into Christ :

L'amore ha quest'ufficio, unir dui en una forma:

Francesco nel supplicio de Cristo lo transforma;

Emprese quella norma de Cristo ch'avea en core.

La mustra fe' l'amore vestuto d'un vergato.

L'amor divino altissimo con Cristo I'abbracciao :

L'affetto suo ardentissimo si lo ce 'ncorporao

Lo cor li stemperao como cera a segello :

Empremettece quello ov'era trasformato.'’

Here, in typical Franciscan fashion, it is love through contemplation
of the Cross that works the miracle of binding two into one form, and
there is a remarkable insistence on the concept of incorporation or in-
deed of a corporeal transformation. The word form in Jacopone's text
is particularly laden with mystical significance. It is a Pauline echo,
for indeed it was Paul who first spoke of a forming of Christ in the
faithful: "My little children, again I am in travail of you, until Christ
be formed in you" (Gal. 4:19). And, as we have seen, it was Paul who
preached the need of dying with Christ, of patterning one's life on
the model of Christ's life and death.

Much of what we have said about human souls in their mystical
life as brides of Christ can be most naturally applied to those virgin
sisters who formally wed themselves to him, thereby renouncing any
claims to an earthly spouse. Besides the formal nuptial vows that have
been taken by countless nuns, the number of those who have had
visions in which mystical marriage with Jesus is experienced is itself
large. It goes without saying that in the descriptions of such visions,
the language is at times exceedingly erotic.®® For the most part, the
references to kisses and embraces add nothing new to what we have
already found. There is a case or two, however, of particular relevance
to our present subject inasmuch as they offer us the most dramatic
examples of the association between the mystic kiss and death.

** Love has this function of uniting two forms into one; it transforms Francis
into the suffering Christ. He took that model of Christ that he had in his heart,
and love, dressed in folly's cloak, showed the way. Divine love, most high, em-
braced him with Christ; his deeply burning passion so incorporated him into
him [Christ], it softened his heart like wax for the seal, and impressed on it that
one [Christ] into whom he was transformed." Laudi, pp. 248-249.

MEDIEVAL MYSTICS

In the thirteenth century Exercises of St. Gertrude the Great, the
request for the kiss that consumes and unites is made with all the
fervor that is found in the Song of Songs and the most erotically
charged commentaries of the preceding century. The prayer at the end
of the fourth exercise has the following invocation: "Come, O Love,
my King and my God, O Jesus my dearly Beloved . . . Unto Thyself, in
the delightsome breathing of Thy sweet-flowing Spirit, attract me,
draw me, and consume me. There in the joy of eternal attainment of
Thee, in the kiss of perfect union, immerse me."®'^ But it is the Pref-
atory Instruction to the evening of the fifth exercise that contains a
passage where the kiss, cleaving, death, and passing over to become
one spirit with the Beloved are part of one psychic and mystic process:
"In the evening thou shalt long and faint with anticipation of en-
joying the eternal vision of the glorious face of God and of the Lamb;
and thou shalt cast thyself into the embrace of Jesus, the Bridegroom
and the Lover, like a busy bee, clinging with thy soul's kiss unto His
loving Heart. Thoii shalt ask of Him the heavenly kiss that loill make
thee die unto thyself, that by this death thou mayest pass over into Cod
and become one spirit with Him."^"" These words reveal plainly the
image that was latent in some of our previous examples of the mystic
kiss: the death of the lover on or by a kiss.

Finally, we may consider a moving and remarkable document
drawn up shortly after the death, at seventy years of age, of St. Juliana
Falconieri (d.1341). In this account of the last moments of the saint,
we learn that because she was unable to assimilate food of any kind,
she was not allowed to receive the Host before her death. Then her
desire to kiss Jesus (the Host) was refused her as unseemly. At last
she obtained the wish that the Host be put on a veil and placed over
her breast. The Host no sooner touched this loving breast than it dis-
appeared, miraculously penetrating into Juliana's heart. The account
concludes with these words: "And when the Host had vanished,
Juliana, with a mild and happy face, as if she were rapt in ecstasy, died
in the kiss of her Lord [in osculo Domini moritur], to the astonishment
and admiration of those present. The singularity of this example
is that in it the kiss image is connected with an actual corporeal death
which occurs during an ecstatic rapture. That is, here the mystic death
and real death are one; St. Juliana died in an ecstasy, or, in the re-
markable words of our document, she died in the kiss of the Lord.

Some three hundred years later the English Catholic poet Richard

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Crashawe was to envision the death of St. Theresa of Avila as just such
a kiss by which God ravished her soul unto himself:

O thou undaunted daughter of desires !

By the full kingdome of that finall kisse
That seiz'd thy parting Soul, and seal'd thee his.

Crashawe's use of the image may derive not only from a Catholic
tradition but from a Jewish one as well. In fact, the image and the ex-
pression "to die in (or by) the kiss of the Lord" must lead us into a
discussion of the kiss image in Jewish religious writings, for a similar
thought which was there elaborated was to become well known to
Christian writers in the Renaissance period as the mors osciili. Before
turning to it, however, it will be well to conclude our consideration of
the kiss in medieval Christianity by some observations regarding the
kiss and the Virgin Mary.^^

The Kiss and the Virgin Mary

In Bernard we saw the kiss figure as the symbol of a fructifying
union between the soul and the Deity whereby the soul is fecundated
and will bring forth spiritual children, that is, good works. We may
here recall that in the matter of both spiritual and physical impreg-
nation the Breath or Spirit of God had always been thought of as the
great fecundating principle and life-giving source, from the hovering
of the Spirit over the waters and the breathing of the spirit of life into
man by God to the fructification of the Virgin by the Holy Spirit. The
Middle Ages did in fact picture the impregnation of the Virgin by the
Spirit as accomplished by a kiss. An eleventh century liturgical tropiis
(De beata Maria Vergine) offers a charming case in point:

Pater per secula
sponsam ad osculum
invitat virginem.

Adulescentula,
confestim credula
gignit propaginem.*^

"The Father from eternity invites the virgin bride to the kiss. The young
maiden, instantly believing, bears his child." In FloriUge de la poesie sacree, ed.
Jean-Pierre Foucher (Paris, ig6i), p. 210.

MEDIEVAL MYSTICS

Here we see that the Annunciation episode is interpreted in conjunction
with the Song of Songs. The Virgin is the bride, and it is significant
that the kiss (the Spirit) is given to the Virgin-bride by the Father.
Jesus, of course, is the fruit of this unique mystic union.

In point of fact, in the Catholic exegetical tradition of the Song
of Songs, a third major current is that which holds the bride to be the
Virgin. Although there is no systematic or comprehensive application
of this interpretation in the early Christian centuries, Ambrose does
appear to be the first Western Church Father to have explicated some
verses of the Song in a Marian sense.®* Of particular interest in this
respect is the fact that in one place he interpreted the kiss of the first
verse of the Song as referring to the infusion of the Holy Spirit in the
Virgin at the Annunciation: "He shall kiss me with the kisses of his
mouth means the grace of the Holy Spirit coming upon her, as the
angel said to Mary, The Holy Spirit will come upon thee. . . Such
a pronouncement from the great bishop of Milan was to count for
much among medieval exegetes. Now in all three of its main inter-
pretations, the Song is certainly a paean to the Incarnation, but it is in
the ecclesiastical and Marian exegeses that this is foremost or most
obvious. Even a modern theologian writes of the Song: "Its intention
is to celebrate the first union of the Word with human nature in the
womb of Our Lady — the first kiss of the Word which is the pledge of
the final union."®® However, just as the Incarnation is understood to
be the love union — the Kiss, as indeed we have heard Bernard refer
to it — which joins the divine and the human natures into one, the
Incarnation as it is effectuated in the womb of Mary may be thought of
as the extraordinary fruit of the love union, of the kiss exchanged
between God and the Virgin.

It may be deemed strange that Bernard, the saint so closely as-
sociated with the advancement of the cult of the Virgin, nowhere in
his Sermons on the Song suggests a Marian interpretation.®* And yet,
although there are occasional indications of a Marian exegesis in
patristic literature, it was in the twelfth century that this interpretation
became truly popular and widespread. Note here that in the context
of nuptial symbolism as applied to the Virgin, Mary, of course, be-
comes the bride of God, but there is no unanimity among Marian
exegetes as to which Person of the Trinity is the Bridegroom. The
angel's announcement to Mary was "The Holy Spirit will come upon
thee" (Spiritiis sanctus superveniet in te), and there was no question

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

about the impregnation being made by way of the Spirit. But the Bride-
groom could be any one of the three Persons. To be sure, this role
could be assumed by the Trinity. This, for example, was the view of
Gilbert Foliot, whose explication of the kiss of the Song is a long and
intricate tour de force of multifold applications of meanings to the
bride and Bridegroom.®” And Godfrey of Admont speaks of the three
Persons of the Trinity as the lovers (amatores) of Mary.®® For the most
part, however, exegetes chose one of the divine Persons for the role
of Lover and Bridegroom. In the eleventh century tropus we quoted
above, it is the Father. This is true also for Rupert de Deutz, one of
the first to apply a comprehensive Marian interpretation to the Song
of Songs. At the beginning of Rupert's commentary it is the Virgin-
bride, exalted by the love announced to her by the angelic messenger,
who calls for the kiss of the Father. By their kiss of love the Holy
Spirit enters and impregnates the Virgin, who gives birth to the God-
man.®* On the other hand, Amadeus, a twelfth century bishop of
Lausanne, saw the Holy Spirit as the Bridegroom. In one of his eight
homilies in praise of the Virgin, he has the Holy Spirit address the
Song's invitation to Mary: "Arise, hasten, my love, my dove, my fair
one, and come."®’ In yet another place Amadeus' language becomes
even more realistically erotic as he himself renews the invitation to the
Virgin, urging her to hasten to the prepared nuptial bed where her
Bridegroom, the Holy Spirit, will come to her. Then she will be kissed
with the kiss of the mouth and enfolded in a blissful embrace. Your
Creator, says Amadeus to the Virgin, has become your Spouse. By this
celestial kiss and embrace of union, the Virgin will be fecundated.®®
What is said here of the Virgin is much like what Bernard says of the
fecundation of the human soul by the divine kiss, although the fruit
of the Virgin's womb is incomparably greater than anything the hu-
man soul can bring forth.

The most curious application of Marian nuptial symbolism would
seem to occur when the Virgin is said to be the Bride of her Son —
Sponsa Christi.^" In one sense, there is nothing unusual in this, for
the soul of any of the faithful is a Sponsa Christi. The uniqueness of
Mary is that she is both Bride and Mother of the Son. We find this
particular relationship brought out by Aelred of Rievaulx, who goes
so far in carrying out the nuptial symbolism as to talk of the An-
nunciation as a marriage between the Son and the Virgin with the
angel as best man {paranymphus). The Son, says Aelred, is the Bride-

MEDIEVAL MYSTICS

groom; the Mother is the Bride. The Deity incarnated comes forth
from Mary's womb as a Bridegroom from the nuptial chamber.®®

But the most unrestrained eroticism in connection with our present
subject is to be found in Philip of Harvengt, for whom the Song of
Songs is a dramatic dialogue between the Virgin and the Word. Mary
is chosen to be the Mother because she is beautiful. But Mary is not
only the Mother that embraces her Son, she is also a Bride tenderly
embracing her Bridegroom. The embraces are enjoyed by both when
the Son, resting sweetly between her breasts, kisses her, and the kiss
is truly consummated when it is given mouth to mouth and is ac-
companied by an embrace breast to breast. The mouth-to mouth-kiss
is not complete without confirmation by such an embrace. Thus the
Virgin is right when she says that their tender love is proved by the
glue of their embrace.®® The Virgin as Bride asks for the kiss — the
Spirit — from the Son. By this kiss Mary, the creature and child of
God, conceives and brings forth her Son.'® Mary is thus Daughter,
Bride, and Mother of God, a theme which was not restricted to the
writings of theologians^*

A late medieval legend proclaimed the Virgin herself to have
been conceived not ex coito but by the way of a kiss — ex oscxilo. This
legend is connected with the development of the idea (now Catholic
dogma) of the Immaculate Conception, that is, the conception of the
Virgin herself, privileged to be born without the stain of original sin.
The salient features of the legend may be briefly stated. After twenty
years of marriage, Joachim and Anne are still childless. When his
offering is refused by the high priest, Joachim retires in shame into
solitude with his shepherds. However, an angel (Gabriel) announces
first to him and then to Anne, who has remained in Jerusalem, that
they are to have a child. Hastening homeward, Joachim meets Anne
at the Golden Gate of Jerusalem, and there the two greet one another
with a kiss. By that kiss the spotless Virgin was conceived.

The Kiss in Medieval Art

In the West the legend of the kiss at the Golden Gate was depicted
in art for the first time by Giotto in a scene which is no less remark-
able than his Kiss of Judas. As in the latter, so in the Meeting of Anne
and Joachim the two figures coming together in a kiss are seen to fuse
into one compact mass. The scene is unusual also for the fact that

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

it portrays the kiss between a man and a woman — that Giotto's couple
is old matters not — so unequivocally as a mouth-to-mouth contact.
Such a depiction is not common in the Middle Ages, and not even in
medieval art dealing with profane love does one meet with it very
easily. Raimond Van Marie notes that there are very few illustrators
of love scenes who have dared to represent the kiss, evidently because
the latter had a much more intimate meaning in the Middle Ages than
it does today; and this is probably the reason why, in the literature of
love of that period, it is a subject infrequently mentioned.

That the references to kisses in medieval amatory literature are
scarce is certainly far from the truth. It may also be said that the kiss
is represented in medieval art with more frequency than Van Marie
suggests. What is true is that rather than a clear labial kiss of lovers,
one often finds something like a cheek-to-cheek representation and,
sometimes, a hand of the male caressing the face of the woman. Partly,
however, the reason for this seems to have been the desire to por-
tray the faces in a full or three-quarters view. This may be observed in
the many scenes, both in sculptured relief and painting, depicting the
kiss of Judas or the theme of the Visitation, where again there is no
question that a real kiss is intended, although in order to show as much
of the faces as possible actual labial contact is hardly shown. Con-
cerning the depiction of the Visitation, some theologians considered
the text from Psalm 84:11 ("Mercy and Truth are met together; Justice
and Peace have kissed") to have been a prophecy or anticipation of that
event, and the artists followed them in this by portraying the Visita-
tion scene as an embrace and a kiss between Mary and Elizabeth, just
as the text of the Psalm was itself depicted allegorically by two fem-
inine figures (Justice and Peace) kissing. So too there are medieval
representations of the meetings of Saints Peter and Paul that show
them embraced while exchanging the kiss of peace. It will be remem-
bered that the New Testament references to the holy kiss and the kiss
of love are made by these two Apostles. One even finds the kiss
in miniatures introducing the text of the Song in medieval Bibles. (See
Figs. 8, 9, 10, 11.)

A fourteenth-century miniature that shows secular lovers kiss-
ing (Fig. 12) is noteworthy because of the impression it creates of
a merging of the lovers into one, an impression that is heightened by
the fact that they wear the same or similar style of costume and the
same (red) color. Even more extraordinary in this respect is an earlier

MEDIEVAL MYSTICS

art object (c. 1150—1250), the handle of a bronze-cast mirror depicting
a couple fully merged as one figure from the waist down and, from
the waist up, clasped in an embrace and a kiss. (See Fig. 13 and pp. 115-
116.) But another point to be made here is that medieval iconography
commonly uses the representation of a kissing couple as an illustration
of the vice of luxury. (See Fig. 16 and p. 154.)

The Kiss in Jeioish Mysticism

Although the kiss was an ancient practice among Jews, a truly
unique symbolism does not seem to be attached to it in Jewish writings
until relatively late.'^® Medieval Judaism, however, produced a notable
kiss symbolism. We may observe first the concept of a death by the
divine kiss, remarking in passing that it was from the Jewish tradition
that this beautiful image was to pass into the writings of Renaissance
authors albeit somewhat transformed from its original meaning and
not without some idea of Christian meaning attached to it.

Interpreting the scriptural words "and Miriam died there" (Num.
20:1), Rashi says: "She too [as Moses and Aaron] died by a [Divine]
Kiss."’’** And in the Midrash on the Song of Songs we read that "the
souls of these [the righteous] will be taken away with a kiss." It is
Moses who most frequently serves as the great example of the death
by a kiss. By this expression, however, the rabbinical exegetes do not
have in mind anything like the Christian mystic kiss in the sense of
a dying to the present life during an excessiis which brings union with
God. Nor do they refer to a real death accompanied by a mystical
ecstasy as in the case of St. Juliana Falconieri. For them it indicates
rather the real but absolutely peaceful death of the righteous, free from
all anxiety or suffering. Originally, then, it is a metaphor referring to a
privileged death that God bestows on his saints; as such it was very
likely connected with the texts of Psalm 115:15 ("Precious in the eyes
of the Lord is the death of his righteous ones") and Numbers 23 :io
("May I die the death of the just"). Eventually, however, this metaphor
does come to be applied in a way that has a significance similar to that
which is given to the kiss in Christian symbolism. This transition is
clearly marked in the twelfth century by a passage from The Guide of
the Perplexed (III, 51) of Moses Maimonides, the greatest Jewish
thinker of the Middle Ages.

When a man's thought is free from distractions and entirely given

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

over in contemplation to the apprehension of God, says Maimonides,
that man can be visited by no evil, for "he is with God and God is
with him."^® The body, especially in youth, is a serious impediment to
the attainment of that pure thought which leads to a "passionate" love
and perception of God. But as the faculties of the body weaken and
their desires are quieted, then the intellect is strengthened and per-
ception is purified. Thus it is when a man given over to the life of
contemplation has reached old age and nears death that "this appre-
hension increases very powerfully, joy over this apprehension and a
great love for the object of apprehension become stronger, until the
soul is separated from the body at that moment in this state of
pleasure" (p. 627). This, it seems to me, must be considered a rapture;
and to it Maimonides applies the rabbinical image of death' by a kiss ;

Because of this the Sages have indicated with reference to the deaths
of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam that the three of them died by a kiss.
They said that the dictum [of Scripture], And Moses the servant of the
Lord died there in the land of Moab by the mouth of the Lord in-
dicates that he died by a kiss. Similarly it is said of Aaron; By the
mouth of the Lord, and died there. And they said of Miriam in the
same way; She also died by a kiss. But with regard to her it is not
said, by the mouth of the Lord; because she was a woman, the use
of the figurative expression was not suitable with regard to her. Their
purpose was to indicate that the three of them died in the pleasure of
this apprehension due to the intensity of passionate love. In this
dictum the Sages, may their memory be blessed, followed the gen-
erally accepted poetical way of expression that calls the apprehension
that is achieved in a state of intense and passionate love for Him, may
He be exalted, a kiss, in accordance with its dictum; Let him kiss me
with the kisses of his mouth (pp. 627-628).

This way of dying which, Maimonides says, is in reality a "salva-
tion from death," is still the death of God's great saints, but accom-
panied now by a true excessiis. Moreover, in explaining this image, the
Jewish thinker has suggested that the kiss as a symbol is used in cases
other than the real death of such saints. He seems to say, in fact, that
the "Sages" applied to the particular scriptural texts referring to the
deaths of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam an image — the kiss — which
was already well established as a poetical metaphor expressing the
attainment of a superior degree of perception or apprehension of the
Deity by way of an intense love. It may be doubted that this was the

MEDIEVAL MYSTICS

order of happening in the Jewish tradition, but the fact that
Maimonides puts it this way leads us to assume that by his time — the
second half of the twelfth century — as in Christian so in Jewish think-
ing, the kiss was familiar as a symbol of the highest stage of contempla-
tion. Moreover, as the Jewish thinker's words show, it was the kiss of
the Song of Songs that was being interpreted in this way, that is, not
merely within the context of a marriage between God and the collective
community of Israel (the traditional Jewish allegorical reading of the
Song), but as the culmination of an amatory relationship between God
and the individual. Maimonides does not have the collective com-
munity of Israel in mind in his discussion of love of God. In fact, as
for the Jewish tradition, the allegorization of the Song in terms of
the individual rather than of the community of Israel may owe most
to Maimonides himself, for his application of the Song in the overall
context of the passage we have quoted is really to a philosophic ques-
tion on the relationship of the rational soul to the Active Intellect.

Following Maimonides, for some three centuries, philosophizing
Jews were to adopt and elaborate some such form of philosphical al-
legory, seeing in the Song the story of the mutual desire for union be-
tween the rational soul and the Active Intellect.'® The Shulamite's
kisses, when referred to, would signify the realization of that union.
Understandably, a certain amount of eroticism attaches to the kiss in
such an interpretation, although it is not heightened beyond the terms
of the Song itself. But it would be improper to infer from this that any-
thing like the Christian iinio mystica was involved. Maimonides, of
course, was the intransigent Jewish rationalist, opposed to anything
even remotely suggestive of pantheism. In the description that he has
given us of the kiss, it is an intellectual perception that is had, and this
is accompanied by an abundance of joy and love. However, by the use
of the kiss image, the link between knowledge and love is clearly and
persuasively established. As for the principal image of Maimonides'
discussion, the "death by a kiss," death is closely associated with if
not actually said to be caused by an acces of love. The soul has been
kissed (rapt) up by God.

The eroticism of the rabbinical death-by-a-kiss is minimal if we
can refer to it as such at all. Even Maimonides duly noted that though
it was said of Miriam that she died by a kiss, it was not said that she
died by the month of the Lord, for inasmuch as she was a woman, such
an expression in regard to her was not seemly.'^ But as in Christianity

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

so too in Judaism, when the kiss image was employed in a full-fledged
mystical doctrine, it was capable of acquiring all the erotic coloring that
can be attached to it. In the esoteric kabbalistic tradition sex becomes
an integral part of and the very key to a grandiose system of inter-
pretation of God, the universe, and man's destiny; and here the kiss
becomes a major symbol of mystic and cosmic significance. This is
evidenced above all by the Zohar, the principal work of Jewish theos-
ophy, written or compiled mostly in the late thirteenth century.'® The
Zohar, of course, is a work that defies any attempt at a brief summary ;
hence, we must renounce any wish to give a fair idea of the scope of
its doctrine and its complicated symbolism; at best, we can only touch
on some of the more important points.

In the Zohar, as in Judaism in general, the concept of loving God
cannot be thought of outside the schema of the love between God and
Israel. Membership in the community of Israel is a condition necessary
to salvation. Nonetheless, such membership is not in itself a guarantee
of salvation, so that responsibility for salvation remains an individual
matter as does the matter of loving God, of "adhering" to him. The
soul of a man is a particle of the Divinity, which it seeks to know in
such a way as to be reunited with it. Yet for all its emphasis on the
yearning of the soul toward God, the Zohar does not characterize it
as a passion of lovers but rather within the terms of a father and child
relationship. Thus there is an eschatological description which tells of
the righteous and pure soul that has made its way after death into the
Palace of Love of the King. In this palace, where "all His love-kisses
are," the King himself appears and then Jacob kisses Rachel (Gen.
29:2), that is, the Lord discovers each holy soul, and takes each in
turn up unto himself, "fondling and caressing her . . . even as a father
treats his beloved daughter."’’® Here then the kiss symbolizes the
union or reunion of the soul with the very source from which it issued
forth, but without any erotic intimation.

But if the relationship between the individual soul and God is kept
on the plane of a father and daughter kinship, the zoharic conception of
the love obtaining between God and Israel finds expression within the
passionate language of the Song. It is in connection with this love that
the Zohar applies the kiss image to a spiritual context on the principle
of a cleaving and union of spirits (breaths) that the real kiss as an ex-
pression of love is felt to effect:

MEDIEVAL MYSTICS

It is the Community of Israel who says this [to God], Why does she
say “Let Him kiss me" instead of "Let Him love me?" Because, we have
been taught, kissing expresses the cleaving of spirit to spirit; therefore
the mouth is the medium of kissing, for it is the organ of the spirit
[breath]. Hence he who dies by the kiss of God is so united with an-
other Spirit, with a Spirit which never separates from him. Therefore
the Community of Israel prays: "Let Him kiss me with the kisses
of His mouth," that His Spirit may be united with mine and never
separate from it.®"

In the Zohar such an application of the kiss of the Song to the
description of the mutual love of God and Israel has more mystical
significance than is immediately apparent from this one isolated pas-
sage. To appreciate this fact, one must have in mind the all-important
kabbalistic concern for the unity of God and the central place that the
mystery or law of sex has in its theosophy. Kabbalism, as G. Scholem
has noted, sought for the mystery of sex in God himself.®* At one time,
the paradisiacal time, everything was as one, but the fall of Adam
caused a division or dualism between the upper world and the lower
world, a division reaching into God, as it were, or rather into the life and
action of the Divinity. This was a break in the perfect harmony and
union that existed between God and his creation. Stated in another
way, God as transcendent in the "upper world" and God as immanent
in the "lower world" became separated. God as immanent has the
name of Shekhinah, which, while by no means a new concept in
Judaism, acquired a peculiar and unique character in kabbalism by be-
ing very distinctly conceived of as the feminine principle of the
Divinity, differentiated from, if not quite opposed to, the masculine
principle. After the Fall, the Shekhinah is in exile but dwells among
the community of Israel. Moreover, there is a mystical equivalence
between the Shekhinah and Israel, whereby the latter becomes a
mystical hypostasis of the Divinity. The true Shekhinah and God are
not so divided that there is no union at all between them, but it is no
longer a continuous union as before Adam's fall. Yet only in this union
of God and the Shekhinah lies the true unity of God. Together they
constitute God as the One; but insofar as they are separate, there is
no One}^ The mystery of their union (and similarly the mystery of the
union between God and Israel) is figured at times by a frank and full
sexual symbolism.®" The ultimate and definitive union of the She-

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

khinah and God by which the dualism of male and female that char-
acterizes all aspects, great and small, of the universe is to be tran-
scended can take place only by a restoration of the original harmony.
Man has an essential role to play in this restoration, by creating the
conditions necessary to it. Man, that is, participates in the work of
redemption and reintegration by living the true religious life. In a way,
then, the salvation of the world and the unity of God himself depend
upon man, although it is understood that man accomplishes this only
by obedience and conformity to the commands and will of God.

Now for the kabbalist, even more than for the orthodox Jews, the
religious life includes marriage and procreation as a sacred respon-
sibility. No less than for the Jewish Christian St. Paul, marriage is
for the kabbalist a sacred and profound mystery. And as human
marriage was for Paul a symbol of the mystic union between Christ
and the Church, so it was for kabbalism a symbol of the union between
God and the Shekhinah (as well as of the union of God and Israel). But
unlike Paul's and many another early Christian's praise of celibacy
and begrudging approval of marriage (and unlike Hasidic Judaism),
the kabbalists were more likely to consider celibacy (as distinct from
chastity) defective, and marriage a sacred duty; for besides the idea
that procreation was felt to increase the force of God, there was the
deep-rooted conviction that, like God, man was not one until he was
male and female.*^ For the kabbalist the supreme law is reintegration,
that is, the transcendence of the dualism of male and female con-
trarieties that make up all aspects of the universe. The union of the
masculine with the female principle takes place among human beings
by way of sexual union within marriage, and this union both sym-
bolizes and helps to satisfy the fundamental yearning for unity that
courses throughout the universe. That is, sexual union between man
and wife has cosmic redemptive value; not only does it reflect the
union between God and Israel, between God and the Shekhinah, but it
actually works toward the definitive supernal union of God and the
Shekhinah, of the upper and the lower worlds, hence for the reintegra-
tion into the primordial unity. By so participating in the restoral of
unity, man brings down blessings from the upper world.*® Now within
the context of this mystery and law of sex, kabbalism under the in-
fluence of the Song has considered the kiss to be a superior form or
expression of the love union, so that not only must a man kiss and
embrace his wife before sexual intercourse, but even during coition

MEDIEVAL MYSTICS

kissing should be engaged in as effecting union. The kiss, which
is so important an act in the life of man, is also the way of communica-
tion for intellectual beings. The kisses of the Song are understood as
referring to the metaphysical and cosmic kiss of the En-Sof (i.e., God
in himself, infinite, non-knowable) and the first Sephireth (the first of
the ten emanations of the En-Sof which form the way of approach to
God). This supernal kiss is the ultimate principle of all life and all
union.®®

The extraordinary role which is thus accorded to the kiss depends,
as we have already seen in the last quoted passage from the Zohar,
upon the notion of a union in spirit. But it has been necessary to sketch
something of the kabbalistic notion of the mystery of sex in order
better to understand still another passage, which is among the most
rhapsodic and remarkable descriptions of the nature and effects of the
kiss that we are likely to find in all the literature of kissing. In the
Song of Songs, says the Zohar, Solomon sang a hymn that surpasses all
others, a paean "in honor of the Supernal King who is the lord of all
peace and harmony"; by it Solomon brought about the perfect love
union between the celestial Bridegroom and the bride, a union between
the upper and the lower world.

Another interpretation of "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his
mouth" is as follows. What prompted King Solomon, when recording
words of love between the Upper and the Lower world, to begin with
the words, "Let him kiss me"? The reason is, as has been laid down,
that no other love is like unto the ecstasy of the moment when spirit
[rwfl/i-breath] cleaves to spirit in a kiss, more especially a kiss on the
mouth, which is the well of spirit [breath] and its medium. When
mouth meets mouth, spirits unite the one with the other, and become
one — one love.®^

Thus far there is nothing that we have not met with already in
Christian symbolism except for the notion of the upper and lower
worlds. But as for the kiss image itself, what is said here reminds us
of writers like Ambrose, Aelred of Rievaulx, and others. As with them,
Jewish mysticism here speaks of a spiritual or supernal union in terms
of a symbolic kiss and justifies this usage by extolling the real kiss as
a mark of the highest physical bliss wherein two become as one by the
mutual cleaving or mingling of breath-spirits. As in the case of the
Latin word spiritus, so here in the word ruah there is the semantic
ambiguity that allows for the dual meaning of breath and spirit. But

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

the zoharic description goes on to recount how the two spirits that unite
in the kiss to become one are also four spirits, evidently because in an-
other sense each one of the kissing partners now has two spirits, his
own and that of the other. At this point the subject is brought into
conjunction with the recondite mysticism of letters and names that
plays such a great part in kabbalism :

In the Book of the first R. Humnuna the Ancient it is said of this
sentence, "the kiss of love expands in four directions [ruhoth], and
these are unified in one, and this is part of the secret of Faith." The
four spirits ascend in four letters, these being the letters from which
depends the Holy Name, and with it all things that are, both above and
below. Also the hymning of the Song of Songs derives its meaning
therefrom. And what are these four letters? A H B H [Love], which
form a supernal chariot.*®

In the Zohar the "secret of Faith," which we find mentioned here,
is invariably understood as the mystery of the law of sex or the union
of the male and female principles. Love — A H B H — forming a super-
nal chariot means that Love is or produces a manifestation of the
Divinity.*® All things of the upper and lower worlds depend upon
Love, a tetragram that is evidently another name here for the Tetra-
grammaton Y H V H-, for as the text goes on to say, the four letters
AH B H constitute "the linking of all things into a perfect whole," and
this, like the idea that all things of the universe (the upper and lower
worlds) depend upon the four letters of the Holy Name, is a concept
generally referring to the Ineffable Name of the Tetragrammaton.
Hence, to say that it is Love that holds things in harmony and works
for the full reintegration, is to say that love is God's activity in man
and throughout the universe. Now the two who kiss form a unity by
which they become one and four, and this suggests a reintegration of
an original androgynous type and a consequent restoral of likeness to
the Tetragrammaton, hence, also an "adhesion" to God: "These four
letters are the four directions [spirits] of the love and joy of all the
limbs of the Body without any sadness at all. Four directions [spirits]
are there in the kiss, each one fulfilling itself in union with the other.
And when two spirits thus become mutually interlocked they form two
which are as one, and thus the four form one perfect whole."®® It is
the one offspring spirit of the two-four spirits, born of the kiss of
love, that makes a mystic journey to the "Palace of Love" where all

MEDIEVAL MYSTICS

love is centered. But now it is not an eschatological vision or kiss that
we have. What is described here occurs whenever two lovers join and
become one spirit in love :

When that love spirit enters the Palace of Love the love-yearning for
the supernal kisses is aroused, those concerning which it is written;
"And Jacob kissed Rachel" (Gen. 29:2), so that the kisses of the super-
nal love are duly brought forth, and they are the beginning of the
awakening of all supernal love, attachment and union. For this reason
the Hymn begins with the words: "Let him kiss me with the kisses
of his mouth." Now who is "he"? He who is hidden within the super-
nal concealment. Can, then, the Most Recondite be the fount of kisses,
and kiss that which is below?®*^

Throughout this passage, the author is alluding to the supernal
kiss or union of the upper and lower worlds; at the same time, however,
while explicating the principle of such a "spiritual" or metaphysical
union in terms of the kiss, he has woven into the whole the idea of the
participatory role of human love in furthering the cosmic union. Under
the proper circumstances, the effect of a kiss between human lovers
is to produce an amatory response from the Deity (the Most Recon-
dite) who "kisses" or moves to unite with the lower world. In keep-
ing with his idea of an esoteric causal relationship between macrocosm
and microcosm, the kabbalist conceives of the kiss of the human couple
as a theurgic ritual that promotes a mystico-cosmic kiss of recon-
ciliation.

3 . The Jvtedieval Love Lyric

ontemporary with the rich flourishing of speculation on
divine love in the twelfth century, there W'as an extra-
ordinary development of the literature of secular love. As
is well known, the first important body of love lyrics in a
vernacular tongue presents a conception of love between the sexes
that was hitherto relatively unknown or unexpressed in the West. Al-
though it cannot be the purpose of this study to inquire into the many
problems concerning the origins and complicated nature of what is
commonly known as courtly or troubadour love, we must say at least
a brief word on the matter in order better to understand the presence
in that phenomenon of some fundamental amatory conceits that do
interest us — among them the image of the kiss, which has so con-
spicuous and even peculiar a place in medieval love poetry.

The theories regarding the origins, nature, and development of
troubadour love have been many: from that stressing Ovid's influence
to that linking courtly love to the Catharist heresy in southern France
in the eleventh and twelfth centuries; from the claim that Arabic
poetry and Sufism are at the source to the idea that Christian liturgical
tropes or St. Bernard of Clairvaux are the truest influences. It would
seem that several or all of the factors implied in these theories and
others as well had a role in the evolvement of troubadour love, for they
by no means exclude one another as influences. Surely no one of them
taken by itself can do justice to the complex question. One of the
striking things about the twelfth century is, after all, the confluence
of various currents into the mainstream of its culture. But although
several factors may have operated in the development of courtly love,
it is hardly possible that the part Christianity had in it should have
been anything but of paramount importance.* And yet, because this
love is directed not to God but to a creature (and sometimes seems to
exalt not only the creature but carnal love itself), there are those who
would deny that it bears anything more than a surface resemblance to
Christian divine love. At first sight, one finds this opinion difficult to
reject; it can, however, be stated too dogmatically. One of the most per-
sistent and able critics holding to this view was Father A. J. Denomy.

THE MEDIEVAL LOVE LYRIC

Pursuing some arguments that had been set forth by Etienne Gilson,
Father Denomy writes that "No one will deny that mysticism, whether
Cluniac or otherwise, did influence the form and the language of the
courtly lyric in general as well as those of the poems of Marcabru in
particular. But as regards 'the ideological content of early troubadour
poetry,' there are fundamental differences between the troubadour
conception of love and the love of God or charity that preclude the
possibility of their identification or even of the influence of divine love
on the origin or formation of that conception."^

It would be foolhardy, of course, to speak of an identification of
the two loves, but that divine love did more than influence just the
language of the troubadour love lyric and had a bearing on the very
formation of the conception of troubadour love is entirely possible. It
may even be argued that in a very real way Christian divine love de-
termined something of the nature of troubadour love. By Denomy's
own admission, "for the troubadours, love is not a complacency, a
quiescence in attainment of the beloved, but rather a ceaseless desire,
a yearning that is unappeased."® Nothing, I think, is truer than what
is said here concerning troubadour love or at least of that side of it
that is of chief interest to this study. But, surely, one need not go out-
side the Christian tradition to look for the determining influences.
(In Appendix II the reader will find remarks on some of the more im-
portant studies dealing with Christian elements in the troubadours,
followed by more detailed comments on the views of those few critics
who have made significant mention of the kiss motif in connection with
courtly-love poetry.)

Love as a Yearning

The whole matter of yearning for the beloved, the restless long-
ing for something superior to and beyond the immediate grasp of mor-
tality, accompanied by the belief that it would, if possessed, bring an
untold bliss and solace — this is at the very heart of troubadour love
poetry; but all this was first at the very heart of Christian spirituality.
If everything else about troubadour or courtly love consisted of noth-
ing but heretical accretions, this, its central element, would suff'ice to
indicate that the troubadour love lyric is rooted in a Christian soil. If
one argues against the specific influence of Bernardine mysticism on
the grounds that it was contemporary with and not prior to the

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

troubadour love lyric, the answer is simply that the tradition of Chris-
tian spirituality had long before then taught men that the nature of
love was to desire without cease. Here the figure that immediately
comes to mind is St. Augustine, for it was he, in the final analysis, who
had the greatest impact on Latin Christianity throughout the Middle
Ages, and it was he who remained the great educator of the psycho-
logical life of man, even for the writers of profane love. From the meet-
ing of his own intense personality and Christianity there emerged a
profound awareness and a dramatic recording of the depth and com-
plexity of the soul in love. In this respect, the influence of the great
saint goes beyond the orientation he gave to Christian theology in
the West and reaches into the area of the human psyche itself.

Augustine's words frequently give poignant utterance to that
desiderium which is the core of his religion but which is also the un-
derlying psychological and spiritual principle of affective mysticism.
For Augustine this desiderium was so central to the Christian life that
he conceived of it as a part of God's working in man whereby the soul
is prepared and made capacious enough to receive its fulfillment; "The
entire life of a good Christian consists of a holy yearning. Now what
you yearn for you do not yet see ... By withholding himself, God
extends our yearning; through yearning he extends our soul; by ex-
tending it he enlarges the room in it. So then, brethren, let us yearn,
since we are to be filled . . . This is our life, that we be exercised by
yearning."^ Thus in order that desire may increase and not die, full pos-
session is withheld deliberately, as it were. The Christian life is here
envisioned as a kind of schooling in desire, and love is considered a
yearning for union that forever draws the soul in a journey to God.
The Christian is not only forever a pilgrim, homo viator, but also for-
ever a lover: "Give me one who loves, and he will feel what I say.
Give me one who yearns, who hungers, who in feeling himself a
pilgrim in this desert is athirst, one who sighs for the fountain of his
eternal homeland. Give me such a one and he will know whereof I
speak. But if I speak to one who is cold, he will not understand what
I say."^ As we have seen in our analysis of the majestic "Sero te amavi"
passage from the Confessions, Augustine was just such a lover-viator.
(See close of chapter i.)

In the case of Gregory of Nyssa this psychology (and meta-
physics) of love as yearning informs a context that is even more spe-
cifically mystical. Commenting upon Moses' request to see God after

THE MEDIEVAL LOVE LYRIC

their face-to-face meeting as though the patriarch had not seen him,
Gregory pictures Moses as a passionate lover longing for a fuller vision
of the supernal archetype of beauty. He explains that the yearning
which Moses experienced for the Supreme Good filled his soul and
that he was asking to see God not merely in a participatory way, but
in essence. But God would not have revealed himself at all if the vision
were meant to have the effect of ending Moses' longing. For it is in
this that the true vision of God consists, in the fact that he who raises
his eyes up to God never ceases to desire him.® Given the transcendence
and infinity of the Deity, the lover's desire must be endless. Any ap-
parent vision of God is no resting place, but a springboard for another
move toward him. Here is the real significance of seeing God — never
to have desire appeased.^ Desire and love urge man ever onward in a
restless and endless search for knowledge of God. Because God is in-
finite, Moses' quest has no end.

This dynamism of unsatisfied desire acquires erotic coloring in
Gregory's commentary on the Song of Songs. Here the soul-bride is
first seen as attaining its heart's desire and an apparent transforming
union with the Bridegroom. "The two are united: God comes to the
soul, and the soul in turn unites itself with God. For she says: My be-
loved to me, and 1 to him who feedeth among the lilies." But this is a
momentary illusion rather than a reality, for the soul is quickly un-
deceived and informed that "far from attaining perfection, she has not
even begun to attain it."® Later, elucidating the words of the Song
(5:7), "The keepers that go about the city found me: they struck me:
and wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me,"
Gregory writes the following of the soul-bride that has been drawn by
the voice of the Beloved;

The soul, having gone out at the word of her Beloved, looks for Him
but does not find Him. She calls on Him, though He cannot be reached
by any verbal symbol, and she is told by the watchman that she is
in love with the unattainable, and that the object of her longing can-
not be apprehended. In this way she is, in a certain sense, wounded
and beaten because of the frustration of what she desires, now that
she thinks that her yearning for the Other cannot be fulfilled or sat-
isfied. But the veil of her grief is removed when she learns that the
true satisfaction of her desire consists in constantly going on with her
quest and never ceasing in her ascent, seeing that every fulfilment of
her desire continually generates a further desire for the Transcendent.®

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

This is as clear a statement as one can expect to have of a psychology
of love which places the true joy of the lover in the quest. But we
should remember that the frustration of nonpossession is always
balanced by the hope of fuller possession. Indeed, the truly religious
and mystical aspect of this dynamism of love is that to seek does not
mean to be completely without that which one desires.

Centuries after Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa, Bernard was
repeating essentially the same ideas. In one of the last of his sermons
on the Song, commenting on the words "In the night, as I lay abed, I
searched for my heart's love, and searched in vain" (3:1), he wrote:

My brethren, to seek God is a great good which I esteem to be second
to no other of the goods of the soul. . . . What virtue can be ascribed
to one who does not seek God, and who would put a limit to the
search for God? Seek his Face evermore, it says [Ps. 104:4], wherefore
it is implied that even after one has found God, one must not stop
seeking him. God is not sought by means of our bodily movement
but by way of our desires. And the happy attainment [of God] does
not extinguish this holy yearning, but rather increases it. How can
it be that the consummation of joy be the end of desire? Rather it serves
as oil to desire which is like a flame. And so it is. The happiness is
made perfect; yet there is no end to the desire, and hence there is
no end to the seeking.^®

Inasmuch as there is always something of God that yet remains to
be known or experienced by the Christian lover-pilgrim, the words of
Augustine are implicit in Bernard's pronouncements also: "What you
yearn for you do not yet see." This is the metaphysics and psychology
of love behind the apparent paradox (but mysticism is constrained to
speak in paradoxes, which is one way of making human language and
natural images say more than they can normally express) we find in
those mystics who claim that attainment of the final stage of the
mystic ascent is equivalent to a state of insatiability or indeed of emp-
tiness. St. Paul, it is true, said that though we now see dimly, as in a
mirror, we will see then face to face. But even this thought occurs in
a passage which opens with the ringing words that "Love never ends"
(I Cor. 13:8). The theme is echoed over and over by the spiritual
writers.'^

Thus at the very time Christianity was teaching its adherents how
to be cleansed of earthly attachments and passions, it was schooling
them in the most exquisite of sentiments. In so educating men how

THE MEDIEVAL LOVE LYRIC

to love the Deity, Christians adapted to their nature that which in the
pagan classical mind was usually thought to be characteristic of the
feminine psyche. It is not so much of a loss of self that Christian
spirituality speaks, but rather of the hope for the self's fulfillment by
a union with the beloved that alone can satisfy it. In the classical at-
titude, it was the woman who depended upon the male for such ful-
fillment. Love as an involvement of the whole person, as passio amoris
in which one yearns and is sick with desire, was deemed an unmanly
emotion leading to the derangement of the faculties.'” It was character-
istic of woman. The Song of Songs and the greater part of the Jewish
tradition show that the same ideas prevailed among the Hebrews. Like-
wise among Christians, who, after all, but continued and accentuated
the classical and Jewish outlook in this matter, the relationship between
the sexes was governed by the patriarchal attitude of the male's
"natural" superiority. It is worthy of note that in the Latin Vulgate
version of the Bible the word amor is found in very few places, and
that in the Song of Songs, where it is most conspicuous (2:5; 5:8), it
is used by the Shulamite in the expression amore langueo, "I am sick
with love." But in his relationship to God, the Christian aspired to be
a bride, individually (the soul) and collectively (humanity or the
Church). Henry Osborne Taylor has a succinct and eloquent statement
on the feminine psyche of St. Augustine that can serve us here; "His
is the woman-nature turned toward God, poured out at his feet, bath-
ing them with its flood; the repentant woman-nature, grateful, devoted,
surrendered, and abased, utterly filled with love of Him, and the
woman-nature which is not narrowed by love's devotion, but is
broadened through it to include tender consideration of whatever needs
love's sympathy."'® These words may be applied to the greater part of
the writers of Christian spirituality in general, but especially to af-
fective mystics. But they may also, and without much violence, be
used to characterize the attitude or relationship of the poet-lover to
his lady in the tradition of courtly love.

If there can be no question of an equivalence between the divine
love of Christian spirituality and the conception of love in the trou-
badours, that is certainly because the object of love is so different in
the two. And yet, to a significant degree, troubadour love is both a
derivation and a deviation from Christian divine love. It represents, if
not the first, perhaps the boldest moment in the history of the
secularization or, better, the profanation of Christian love by the fact

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

that it transferred not only the language but something of the very
sentiments of love, as taught by Christianity, from God to woman,
thereby leading to a pseudodivinization of the latter. Leaving aside
the question of the specific object of love, it is clear that essential ele-
ments of the psychology of love are the same in Christian and trou-
badour lovers. Both place great stress on the value of the beloved and
on the act of loving itself. In both there is often an emphasis on the
distance separating the lover from the beloved and on the desire and
need to bridge that distance. And for both this is the mainspring for
a conception of love as an ecstatic experience in the sense that it takes
the lover out of himself in a quest for union with the beloved. From
this groundwork there emerge in Western literature such important
amatory conceits as the migration of the lover's spirit or heart to where
the beloved is, the lover's heart dwelling in or by the beloved, and the
exchange of souls or hearts. Such themes depend then upon the notion
of love as a movement and a cleaving of the self to the object of desire.

Love as a Migration and a Cleaving

Love, we have seen, is a driving force (motus animi) or motive
weight that carries the lover to where he loves: Pondus meum amor
mens; eo feror, quocumque feror (Conf., XIII, 9), "My weight is my
love; I am borne by it, whithersoever I am borne." Of course, this is a
journey or migration made not by the body but by the soul or spirit,
or, indeed, by the heart: Jmus non ambidando, sed amando, "We go
not by walking, but by loving," as Augustine has it (Ep. 155, 4). Love
is also a cleaving. One of Augustine's favorite and characteristic texts
is, in the words of the Psalm (72:28), "It is good for me to cling
[adhaerere] to God," just as for Bernard and other medieval spiritual
writers a key text is Paul's mystic utterance: "He who clings unto the
Lord is one spirit with him." In Augustine's description of divine love
some of the most important words are haerere, adhaerere, cohaerere,
"adhere, cling to, cleave to." But it is especially noteworthy that he
could apply the image of the cleaving heart to a description of pro-
fane love as well. Thus in telling of his mistress's forced separation
from him he writes: "My mistress being torn from my side as an im-
pediment to my marriage, my heart, which clung to her [cor, ubi
adhaerebat], was racked, and wounded, and bleeding. The heart was
the seat of the affective life and in this sense was to win a place beside

THE MEDIEVAL LOVE LYRIC

soul and spirit in the description of love, especially among the secular
poets.

If Augustine appears as the most dramatic and authoritative
voice of such sentiments and imagery, it is nonetheless true that these
are the common heritage of Christian spirituality. The particular con-
ceit of the migration of the amorous soul, for example, is stated suc-
cinctly in the fifth century by Diadochus, bishop of Photice, who de-
fined hope as “an emigration of the mind under the force of love toward
the object hoped for.“^®

In similar fashion, Gregory of Nyssa spoke of the biblical account
of Abraham's departure from his native land (Gen. 12 :i-4) in a spiri-
tual sense as a migration of the soul. Like Moses, Abraham is thought
of as a lover drawn by the divine attraction and yearning to gaze on
Beauty bare. No physical migration could bring one to a knowledge of
the divine Beauty, but only a migration of the soul from its present
habitat, which is to say, out of the self and the world of senses toward
a spiritual apprehension of God in an elan of love, faith, and hope.^®

Later, in the Latin Middle Ages, we find the same ideas crystallized
into a widespread formula of Christian ecstatic love — the saying that
the soul (or spirit, or heart) is more where it loves or yearns than in
the body it animates. In explicating two passages from St. Paul —
“Conversatio nostra in coelis est" (Phil. 5:20), and "Quamdiu sumus
in corpore, peregrinamur a Domino" (II Cor. 5:6) — St. Bernard of-
fered an explanation within the context of Christian Charity: "Neque
enim praesentior spiritus noster est ubi animat, quam ubi amat" — For
our spirit is not more present where it animates than where it loves. In
the following century St. Bonaventura recalled Bernard's maxim, and
by replacing spiritus with anima, he rephrased it into a formula that
was to be even more popular; "Puto, anima mia, quod verius es ubi
amas quam ubi animas" — I think, my soul, that you are more truly
where you love than where you animate.^' In the meantime, Aelred of
Rievaulx, in one of the great twelfth century treatises on Christian
love, was noting that once we have chosen an object, love fills the
soul with a desire that carries it toward that object. It is this movement
of desire, says Aelred, that is known as love. {Speculum Caritatis, III,
8). For the Christian, then, as such remarks remind us over and over,
love is ecstatic by definition. In this connection we should not forget
to mention a fundamental New Testament text — it is specifically
quoted by Bernard in support of his own statement — the passage from

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus says that our heart is where
our treasure is: "Ubi est thesaurus tuus, ibi est et cor tuum" (Matt.
6:21).

For the sake of exactitude and because of the importance of the
subject, it is necessary to point out that I do not mean to imply that
these concepts originate in any absolute sense with Christianity. In
Judaism the yearning for the Messiah was at times extraordinarily
intense. But even more interesting, from our present point of view, is
the situation in the West. In the brilliant pages in which he studied
the Greek awakening to new or unmapped areas of the psyche — in
the archaic lyric writers, significantly enough — Bruno Snell shows
how, with Sappho, longing bridges the distance between herself and
the beloved by stimulating memory to an activity that in part conquers
separation. Writing of the extant part of a poem by Sappho (98) Snell
states: "Literally the first sentence says: 'Often she has her mind here
from the direction of Sardes.' This is the sort of formulation which for
Homer would have been impossible. For Sappho, the mind is capable
of dissociating itself from its place, and so a community of thought
and feeling is entirely feasible. These concepts have become common
coin in our world, but Homer does not yet have them."^® It is in this
sense that human beings — they are, in Sappho's context, lovers — are
united, despite spatial separation, by a nonphysical quality, "by some-
thing that lies in the realm of the soul."

Without doubt the importance of this achievement is not to be
underrated, but it must be pointed out that what is involved is a com-
munion made by the reciprocal memory of actual sensuous moments
lived together. Despite some variations and further refinements, in-
cluding at times the Platonic concept of anamnesis, this was to remain
the case through most of the classical period of the West. Of course,
the Platonic epigram on kissing Agathon, and some early imitations
of it (see the Introduction) where movement of the soul or union of
souls is suggested, bring us closer to what we are presently concerned
with. But here too it is the sensuous ground of reality that determines
the quality of the emotion. Within such a context we are still a long
way from the concept of an experiential migration of the soul (in-
fluenced, to be sure, by a Platonistic philosophical current) or the ex-
periential union, be it among friends or between the soul and God,
that Christian spirituality bespeaks.

Even so, as the examples of Augustine and others have already

THE MEDIEVAL LOVE LYRIC

revealed to us, the theologians knew full well that the conception of
love as a migration and an adhering of the soul or heart to the beloved
was true of both caritas and cupiditas. Nonetheless, because of the
particular orientation and purpose of their speculation, we may, when
speaking of it in connection with such authors, refer to it as a religious
conception of love. Now the truly secularized counterpart — again in
terms of orientation and context — of this view of love is found in most
troubadour poets, but perhaps nowhere more tellingly than in Jaufre
Rudel. It is not without significance that the best-known and best-
loved of the biographies of the troubadours has always been that of
Jaufre, depicting as it does both the migration of the lovesick poet
to the far-off land where the beloved (heard of but not yet seen) resides
and the expiration (on a kiss in some versions) of the lover upon reach-
ing the object of his search. In his verse we find the poet writing:

De dezir mos cors no fina

Vas selha ren qu'ieu pus am.'*

But not only does the poet's heart yearn toward the beloved ; under
the motive power of that desire it leaps the distance and cleaves to the
beloved. Even at night when the poet is asleep, his spirit (in dreams)
is with her:

Lai es mos cors si totz c'alhors
Non a ni sima ni rai'tz
Et en dormen sotz cobertors
Es lai ab lieis mos esperitz.'*

Because it has gone to the lady, the heart no longer has its place
(ni sima ni raitz) in its normal body. The same ecstatic phenomenon
appears in the following lines by Bernart Marti:

Qe en dormen e en veillan,

Qant si desvest dal seu mantel
M'est vis qe mos cors s'i sejorn."

® "My heart does not cease from yearning toward the object I love most." From
'Quan lo rius de la fontana," in Les chansons de Jaufre Rudel, ed. A. Jeanroy
(Paris, 1924), p. 5.

** "There [where the beloved is] is my heart so completely that elsewhere it
has neither top nor root; and W'hen I sleep under the covers, my spirit is there W'ith
her." From "Pro ai del chan essenhadors," in Les chansons de Jaufre Rudel, pp. 7-8.

"While I am asleep or when I am awake, when she removes her cloak it seems
that my heart dwells with her." From "Quant la pluei' e.l vens e.l tempiers," in
Les poesies de Bernart Marti, ed. E. Hoepffner (Paris, 1929), p. 29.

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

The motif is expressed as a kind of victory over separation in the
following exclamation by Guilhem de Cabestanh:

Partis? Non me, nei |a ni me partria,

Anz es mos cors ab leis e noit e dia.*^

But we are reminded that the troubadours are sometimes anxious for
more than such spiritual union by the fact that Arnaut Daniel wishes
he were with his lady in body as well as in soul :

Del cors li fos, non de I'arma
E cossentis m'a celat dinz sa cambra.®

The troubadours were fond of playing on the words heart and
body (cor(s), cors) and on the image of the heart drawn or migrating
from the body. In the verses just quoted Arnaut wishes that his body
(cors) would be where his soul is, with the lady in her chamber. Soon
after, in the same poem, he tells us that his cors clings to the beloved
at all times, wherever she may be. Now, however, the poet means his
heart. Force is lent to the concept of the heart's cleaving by the image
of the fingernail and the bark:

On q'ill estei, fors en plaz', o dins cambra,

Mos cors no'is part de lieis tant cum tan I'ongla.

C'aissi s'empren e s'enongla

Mos cors en lei cum I'escorss' en la verga.^

Once the heart's migration to the beloved under an ecstatic im-
pulse of desire appeared as an amatory conceit, it was inevitable that
it should lead to the idea of the heart as messenger, either to plead the
lover's cause with the lady or to recall to the poet the charms of the
beloved. Or the poet sent his heart to serve his lady, who sometimes,
however, held it as a prisoner. Italian poetry in particular was to create
a surfeit of such images. But the subsequent development of the con-
ceit of the heart's migration need not detain us here. For the moment
my purpose has been to point to its psychological and historical

Leave her? Not I indeed, for never will I go from her; on the contrary, my
heart is with her night and day.'' From "Mout m'alegra douza vos per boscaje," in
Les chansons de CnUhein de Cabestanh, ed. A. Langfers (Paris, 1024), p. 23.

® Would I were hers with body, not only with soul, and that she would take me
secretly into her chamber." From "Lo ferm voler q'el cor m'intra," in Canzoni, ed.
Gianluigi Toja (Florence, i960), p. 376.

f Wherever she may be, out in the square or in her chamber, my heart does not
separate from her the space of a fingernail. For thus my heart adheres and becomes
like a nail to her as the bark to a twig." Ibid., p. 377.

THE MEDIEVAL LOVE LYRIC

foundations, which lie at the very core of Christian spirituality. None-
theless, by way of one last example, the following treatment by the
thirteenth century poet Rustico di Filippo gives some indication of how
widespread the motif had become:

r aggio inteso che sanza lo core
Non po' I'om viver ne durar neiente,

Ed io vivo sanz'esso, e lo colore
Perb non perdo ne saver ne mente :

Ma solo per la forza del segnore
Che '1 n'ha portato, ch'e tanto potente :

Lo diparti dal corpo, do fue Amore,

E I'ha miso in balia de I'avvenente.

Lo cor, quando dal corpo si partio,

Disse ad Amor : — Segnore, in qual parte
Mi meni? — E quel rispose: — A1 tuo disio.

In tale loco e, che gia mai non parte.

Insieme sta il meo core e '1 desir meo:

Cosi fosse il corpo in terza parte

Besides the idea of the heart's migration under the force of love (per-
sonified here), we find again the play on the heart-body (cor-corpo)
theme and the poet's wish that his body were there where his heart
and desire (the beloved) are. But particularly noteworthy is the line
that speaks of the heart being with the poet's desire: "insieme sta il
meo core e '1 desir meo." One is struck by the very closeness of the ex-
pression to the religious formula of ecstatic love.

Love as a Psychic Union

Related to the conceit of the heart's migration is the theme of an
exchange or union of hearts or spirits. This too, as we have seen, is
of the very essence of Christian spiritual love, whether among the

®"I have heard that man cannot live nor endure at all without his heart; but I
live without it, and yet I do not lose my color nor my knowledge nor thought.
But solely through the might of that lord who has taken it from me, and who is
so powerful. That is, it was Love who separated it from my body and put it into
the fair one's power. The heart, when it was separated from the body, said to Love:
'Lord, whither do you lead me?' And he replied: 'To your desire.' It is in a place
that it will never leave. My heart and desire remain together. Would that my
body were likewise there, as a third party." Rimatori comico-realistici del Due e
Trecento, I, ed. M. Vitale (Turin, 1956), 169-170.

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

faithful in Christ or between the soul and God. However sensuous the
love poetry of the troubadours could become, it did include a concep-
tion of fin' amors or true love which held that love consists in the union
of hearts and in the contemplation of the mind. In the following verses
Bernart de Ventadorn invites his lady to exchange spirits with him.
In that way they will be part of each other and “know" each other
thoroughly ; and their two hearts will be as one :

Domna, s'eu fos de vos auzitz
Si charamen com volh mostrar,

A1 prim de nostr' enamorar
Feiram chambis dels esperitz !

Azautz sens m'i fora cobitz,

C'adonc saubr'eu lo vostr' afar
E vos lo meu, tot par a par,

E foram de dos cors unitz.**

For human lovers, then, no less than for divine lovers, love seeks
to unite two hearts in one or to bring about a mutual transformation
of the lover and the beloved. Medieval poets of different lands knew
this motif well. The idea of two lovers joined in one heart or sustained
by one same heart is spelled out carefully in the following verses from
a thirteenth century French poem in which the poet begins by asking
the lady to allow his heart to find a place in her :

Or vous voudrai proier et par amors moustrer
Que vous lessiez mon cuer avoec vous reposer,

Le mieu cuer et le vostre vueil ensamble atorner.

Certes dui vrai amant doivent I cuer porter
Et leur II cuers en I ajoindre et bien fermer.*

We can point to a witty treatment of the motif to illustrate how
widespread the mystical amatory conceit had become. In an example

“Lady, if I were but heard by you as earnestly as I wish to show you, at the
start of our love we would exchange our spirits. Thereby a clever wit would be
bestowed upon me; for then I would know your affairs and you mine, equally, and
we would from two hearts be made one." From "Can lo boschatges es floritz e vei
lo terns renovelar," in Bernart de Ventadorn, Seine Lieder, ed. Carl Appel (Halle
a S., 1915), p. 227.

' "Now I would like to beg of you, and to prove for love's sake that you should
let my heart dwell with you; I wish my heart and yours to move together. For
indeed two true lovers should bear one heart, and their two hearts should unite
in one and hold fast." Quoted in Les saluts d'amour du troubadour Arnaud de
Mareuil, ed. P. Bee (Toulouse, 1961), p. 51.

THE MEDIEVAL LOVE LYRIC

in German from the thirteenth century poet Ulrich of Liechtenstein,
the lover proposes a psychic exchange and merging of persons into one;
the lady, however, declines, preferring that their identities remain
separate :

Vrouwe, da soltu mich meinen
Herzenlichen als ich dich,

Unser zweien so vereinen,

Daz wir beidiu sin ein ich.

Wis du min, so bin ich din!

"Herre, das mac niht gesin.

Sit ir iuwer, ich bin min."'

Here one detects the influence of the Song of Songs and perhaps that
of its exegetes. In the Song the Shulamite twice exults that her true
love is hers and she all his (2:16; 6:2). In the Middle Ages both the
secular and the religious love lyric were borrowing freely from the
imagery of the Song. Thus alongside the verses of Ulrich of Liechten-
stein we may place the following that speak of the soul's desire for
Christ;

Verwundet ist das hertze min.

Da hastu, lieb, geschossen in . . .

O herr, du bist min, so bin ich din,^

or these which refer to the union between Christ and the cloistered
nun;

Ich du, du ich, wir zwei sin ein.

Also wirt ein von uns zwein.'

Returning to the profane tradition, we note that one of the earliest
love lyrics in German (second half of the twelfth century) is a brief
anonymous strophe whose first line is; "Du bist mm, ich bin dm" —
Thou are mine, I am thine.

' "Lady, then should you love me as cordially as I do you, and so unite the two
of us that we both become one only. Do you be mine, as I am yours! 'Sir, that may
not be. Do you stay yours, I am mine.' " Ulrich von Liechtenstein, Frauendienst,
II, ed. Reinhold Bechstein (Leipzig, a888), 157-158.

^ "My heart is wounded, since thou, love, hast shot at it . . . Oh Lord, as thou
art mine, I am thine. . . ."

* "I thou, thou I, we two are one, and so is one made from us twain." Quoted in
Arnold Oppel, Das Hohelied Salomonis and die deutsche religiose Liebeslyrik:
Abhandlungen ziir Mittleren und Neueren Ceschichte, Heft 32 (Berlin and Leipzig,
1911), pp. 28-29.

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Here it is not without interest to note that the play on the heart-
body theme and the "mysticalness" implied in the idea of the migration
or exchange of hearts in the description of human love was very early
such as to provoke no less a writer than Chretien de Troyes, in the
latter part of the twelfth century, to devote a brief discussion on the
matter in an attempt to reduce these amorous topoi to a realistic psy-
chology. In Cliges — which has with good cause been referred to as an
Anti-Tristan, the Tristan legend being replete with an erotic mysti-
cism — when Chretien describes the enamorment scene between the
young lovers, he says that as Fenice has placed her eyes and heart in
Cliges, so the latter has promised his heart to her. Nay, not promised,
but surely given. Truly given? No. For in actual fact nobody can really
give his heart. In order to clarify the question, Chretien presents an
account that effectively explains the image as a kind of poetic license.
His position may be summarized thus: it cannot be said that two hearts
unite in one body, because it is simply not true that two hearts can
exist in one same body. On the other hand, it can be said that two
hearts behave in unison without materially joining with one another.
They behave in unison only when the will of each passes to the other,
in the sense that they agree in willing the same things; and it is pre-
cisely because they have a unity of desire that there are those who
say that each of them has two hearts. One sole heart, however, is not
in two places. The will, on the other hand, can be one and the same,
even if each person conserves his own heart, just as diverse persons
can sing in unison a song or a vers. Thus it is evident that one body
cannot be said to contain two hearts merely because each knows all that
the other loves and hates, just as the various voices that unite in such
a way as to seem one same thing cannot belong to one alone. The
triumphant conclusion of this reasoning is that one body can have
only one heart — "Ne peut cors avoir cuer que un."^“

Now this reasoning is irreproachable from both a realistically
psychological and a theological point of view. Even the ecstatic Ber-
nard of Clairvaux, like many, indeed most theologians, when he wishes
to explain in orthodox fashion and accordingly accommodate ex-
perience to the language of reason, speaks of love — even love between
the soul and the Deity — as a conformity of wills, which is just
Chretien's point. Bernard's Sermon 71 on the Song, for example, ex-
plains the difference between the unity within the Trinity and the
union between the soul of an individual and God by noting that in

THE MEDIEVAL LOVE LYRIC

the Trinity there is truly but one Will, whereas the union between God
and the human soul consists of a union of two distinct and separate
wills. So too, as we have seen in chapter 2, the sense of spiritual
oneness with his brother Gerard, to the point of saying they were one
soul, is also explained as a conformity and harmony of their two wills.
But just as Bernard very often found such unimpeachable language
insufficient to describe the experience of divine love, so too Chretien's
aridly rational explanation would seem unsatisfactory to those poets
of his age and after who sought to express the nature of an experi-
ential mystic love between creatures.

It would be a mistake, however, to see in the examples of this
section a transposition pure and simple from the language of divine
love to that of human love. The two-in-one motif acquired vast pro-
portions in the literature of the Middle Ages, and because it will be
occupying our attention again, we may observe now that its presence
in medieval love-literature is connected not only with the description
of Christian divine love but also with the idea of friendship as de-
scribed by classical and Christian writers, and even with certain ritual
ceremonies by which friendship or blood-brotherhood was effected
between two males. The role of this latter phenomenon as an influence
in the development of the relationship between man and woman in
medieval courtly love has recently been studied at great length by
Rene Nelli.^^ But while there is an important element of truth in the
connection Nelli makes between the "primitive" rites of male friend-
ship and certain conventions and myths of love in the Middle Ages,
the sophisticated language of the poets is such that at least where
they (the poets) are concerned we can more safely speak of a borrow-
ing of the vocabulary (and, to some degree, of the sentiment) of the
classico-Christian ideal of friendship in their songs of heterosexual
love. We need not embark on a long discussion of this matter here. For
our purposes it is enough to remember that the most significant psy-
chological or even mystical aspect of friendship from Aristotle and
Cicero to Augustine, Bernard, and Aelred of Rievaulx is contained in
the idea that a friend is another self and in the concomitant image of
one soul in two bodies. (See chapter 2, at the end of the discussion on
Aelred.) Certainly it is not always easy to determine whether a poet
making use of the two-in-one or the "one soul (or heart) in two bodies"
motif is drawing upon the mystics' description of divine love or upon
the language of friendship. Very likely both are alternately or simul-

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

taneously at work in some poets, and it may even be said that the two
have much in common. In a Christian context, of course, it would be
difficult to keep a sharp distinction between love and friendship; at
the very least, the first is the foundation of the second.

Without doubt the examples we have noted in this section, and
even more those we shall later consider from medieval romances, be-
speak an affection which partakes of both love and friendship: a
sentiment that is amor-amicitia. Such a sentiment implies a relation
that lifts woman to a plane on which she is the equal of man and in
every way worthy of being his “friend." But one of the most well-
known yet nonetheless remarkable things about medieval love poetry
is the amount of it which places the lady in a position of superiority
vis-a-vis the male, although this does not rule out the motif of friend-
ship. Most of the lyric poetry that suggests love to be something more
than the desire for physical possession of the female by the male keeps
this relationship, and a small but significant part of it employs the
kiss motif in making its point.

The Kiss: Prelude or Termimisl

The most famous pronouncement concerning the courtly con-
ception of love as a union of hearts and a contemplation of the mind
was made by the “codifier" of courtly love, Andreas Capellanus. Its
fame rests on Andreas's curious notion that the practitioners of the
highest form of heterosexual love are allowed the physical delights of
kissing, embracing, and a judicious contact in the nude. The final
solace of sexual intercourse is not to be indulged in, for then love
would die, whereas “pure love" (such is Andreas's name for it) con-
tinues to increase indefinitely and leads the lover to moral excellence :

And pure love is that which joins the hearts of two lovers together
with a complete feeling of delight. Moreover, this [love] consists in
the contemplation of the mind and the affection of the heart; it even
goes as far as the kiss of the mouth and the embrace of the arm and
the modest contact of the nude mistress except for the final solace;
for those who wish to love purely are not allowed to practice that. This
is the love which anyone who is resolved to love should embrace with
all his power. For this love knows increase without end, and we have
learned that no one has repented its practice; and the more one takes
from it the more one desires to have. This love is distinguished by

100

THE MEDIEVAL LOVE LYRIC

being of such great power (virtue) that from it comes the source of
complete integrity.”^

We will not here press a comparison between Augustine's "with-
holding of the vision" and Andreas's withholding of the final solace
except to say that both seem to function to exercise man in desire, to
increase desire. Equally striking is the resemblance between Andreas's
idea of the pure lover going as far as the kiss and chaste embrace of the
beloved in the nude and Augustine's description of the spiritual lover
hoping to behold and embrace — chastely — the beloved Sophia in her
beautiful nakedness (see p. 47). But whatever may be the ultimate
reason for, or sense of, this amor interruptus in Andreas's passage, it
is clear that the kiss and embrace are established as a terminal rather
than a preludious bliss. The same attitude is boasted in a thirteenth
century lai in which the poet claims that he is unlike other lovers be-
cause he seeks no solace beyond the kiss and the embrace:

Ce font il, mais je nel fas
Ni li quier autre solas
Fors de baisier et de bras."'

Of course, any reader of medieval literature knows that this is
not the only, nor even the dominant, attitude of lovers in the Middle
Ages. Medieval literature is replete with kisses and embraces, most
often as a sign or hope of something more to come. In fact, this is the
case in that "mixed" love that Andreas distinguishes from "pure" love
by saying it includes the final solace. The attitude toward mixed love,
however, is somewhat ambiguous. The first thing to note is that the
casuistry concerning the two loves occurs in that section of Andreas's
book that treats of the amorous relationship between men (including
clerics) and women of the highest caste. Although Andreas (or the
interlocutor) says that even mixed love leads to virtue, it is at best
approved conditionally; and in the context of the dialectic between
the two loves, it is explicitly declared to be inferior, not only because
it is more offensive to God and leads to serious consequences, but also
because of its brief duration {parvo tempore diirat). The practitioner
of pure love, on the other hand, is not even to think of coitus as his
due. Insofar as the intimacies allowed are concerned, the mixed love

"* "This they do but I do not do it, nor do I seek other solace beyond the kiss
and the embrace." "Lai des Pucelles," vss. 67-69. In P. Abelard, I 'Planctus/ ed.
G. Vecchi (Modena, 1951), p. 112. The lai is found in a thirteenth century manu-
script, Bibliotheque Nat., Paris, fr. 12.615.

101

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

spoken of here is not different from what is said earlier in Andreas's
treatise where the talk is about love between commoners. There love
is said to have been ordered from antiquity into four distinct and suc-
cessive stages: the first consists in the granting of hope, the second
in the granting of the kiss, the third in the enjoyment of the embrace,
and the fourth culminates in the yielding of the entire person.^®

The position granted to the kiss in this particular progression to
love's fulfillment in coitus is inferior to its position within the more
common topos of the five "points" of love. In the latter amatory
schema, which has been briefly traced from antiquity into the Renais-
sance by E. R. Curtius, the kiss figures as the penultimate step follow-
ing sight, conversation, and touching (i.e., the embrace and caress-
ing).'^

The kiss as a promise or stimulant of a further physical intimacy
is indeed ancient, as even Andreas indicated, and it continued to be
thought of as an Ovidian preliminary by many (perhaps most) poets,
the troubadours among them. Peire Vidal, for example, after stealing
a kiss from his lady, claims he will die if he cannot have the rest:

Intrei dins sa maizo
Edh baizei a lairo
La boca ed mento.

So n'ai agut e no mas re,

E sui tot mortz, si-1 plus rete."

And Bernart de Ventadorn, whom we will soon call upon to illustrate
an opposite tendency, shows himself in one poem to be among those
poets who are incited by the kiss to ask for del plus:

E car VOS plac que-m fezetz tan d'onor
Lo jorn que-m detz en baizan vostr'amor,

Del plus, si-us platz, prendetz esgardamen.°

Among medieval French works we find in the Roman de la Rose
that when Amant requests permission to kiss the rose, Bel Aceuil ex-
plains that Chastity forbids him to allow anyone that privilege because

" "I entered into her room and stole a kiss from her on the mouth and chin.
That is all that I had. I am dead if she withholds the rest." From "Ajostar e lassar,"
in Les poesies de Peire Vidal, ed. J. Anglade (Paris, 1923), pp. 62-63.

° "And since it pleased you to do me so high an honor that day when you gave
me your love with a kiss, take heed now, I beg you, to grant the rest." From
"Be.m cuidei de chantar sofrir," in Bernart de Ventadorn, Seine Lieder, ed. C.
Appel (Halle a S., 1915), p. 76.

102

THE MEDIEVAL LOVE LYRIC

whoever manages to kiss the beloved is not able to rest content but
aspires to "the rest":

Car qui au baisier puet ataindre
A poine puet atant remaindre;

E sachiez bien cui Ten otroie
Le baisier, il a de la proie
Le miauz e la plus avenant
Si a erres dou remenant.'’

(3404-3408)

And in Le Chastiement des Dames, a versified manual for the behavior
of ladies, Robert de Blois warned of the perils that lurk in the kisses
of men other than one's husband, although his words might well have
created more of a titillating curiosity than a distaste for the "sorplus"
that such kisses inevitably lead to:

Li baisiers autre chose atrait,

Et quant il a la fome plait
Qu'ele le veut et le desirre,

Du sorplus n'i a aul que dire;

S'ensi n'est que li leus lor faille,

Le sorplus vuet ele sanz faille.®

(129-134)

It is the same warning and understanding of woman's frailty that
was spoken of by Chretien de Troyes in the Perceval when an out-
raged lover explains that although his beloved claims she had only been
kissed, and against her will at that, by a fair stranger, there can be
little doubt that things went beyond that; for any woman who sur-
renders her lips will easily and anxiously offer up the "sorplus":

Et s'il le baisa mal gre suen
Ne fist il apres tot son buen?

Oil, ce ne querroit ja nus
Qu'il le baisast sanz faire plus,

Que I'une chose I'autre atrait.

Qui baise feme et plus n'i fait,

P "For whoever can achieve the kiss can scarcely remain at that stage; and know
indeed that whoever is granted the kiss has the best and most pleasant part of
the prize, for thus he has the pledge of the remainder."

"The kiss leads to other things, and when it so pleases a woman that she wants
and desires it, there is no doubt about the rest; indeed it is only the place that
they lack, for she will have the rest without fail." In John Howard Fox, Robert de
Blois, son oeuvre didactique et narrative (Paris, 1950), pp. 136-137.

103

THE KISS SACRED AND PROEANE

Des qu'il sont sol a sol andui,

Dont quit je qu'il remaint en lui.

Feme qui se bouche abandone
Le surplus molt de legier done/

But the kiss itself can be evoked as an image suggesting the full
extent of the physical intimacies of sensual love. In the work of the
very first troubadour, Guillaume IX, there is a reference to a kiss that
stands out because of its boldness and setting. Here the lover will die
if he does not receive the kiss:

Si"m breu non ai ajutori.

Cum ma bona dompna m'am,

Morrai, pel cap sanh Gregori,

Si no-m bayz'en cambr'o sotz ram.®

The image of receiving the kiss en cambr'o sotz ram is perhaps
another borrowing from the Song of Songs, which opens with the
passionate request for kisses and later speaks both of the beloved's
dwelling and of the trysting place under an apple tree: "Sub arbore
malo suscitavi te" (8:3). In Guillaume's verses the kiss is deemed neces-
sary to keep the poet in life, but there is no doubt about the brutally
sensual nature of the love involved. Indeed here one can almost read
the term kiss as a euphemism for coitus. In any case the quality of the
love and kiss of such passages is not essentially different from what
we find in the Latin love lyrics of the "goliardic" poets, who were the
contemporaries of Guillaume and the other early troubadours. It will
be useful to consider them at this point.

The Latin Love Lyric of the Goliards

The thirteenth century manuscript of Benedictbeuren contains
a body of twelfth century love lyrics (the Carmina Burana) particularly

^ ''And even if he did kiss her against her will, didn't he go on afterwards to do
as he wished? Indeed, one cannot believe that he kissed her without doing any-
thing more, for the one thing [i.e., the kiss] leads to the other. If a man kisses a
woman and does not urge for more when they are alone, I believe it is the man
who shows restraint. For a woman who surrenders her mouth easily gives up the
rest" (3855-3864). Le roman de Perceval on le conte du graal, ed. William Roach
(Geneva and Paris, 1959), p. 113.

® If shortly I do not have assistance from the love of my good lady, I will die,
by St. Gregory s head! unless she kisses me in her room or under a tree." From
"Farai chansoneta nueva," in Les chansons de Guillaume IX, ed. A. Jeanroy (Paris,
1927), p. 20.

104

THE MEDIEVAL LOVE LYRIC

notable for references to kisses whose Ovidian character betrays a
totally secular application of the Song of Songs. Thus we find the lover
desiring to embrace and kiss the object of his desire beneath a leafy
tree:

Si tenerem quam cupio
In nemore sub folio,

Oscularer cum gaudio.

Dulcis amor!*^

Another lover invites kind Phyllis to give him that peace which
comes from the love embrace and kiss :

Ergo fac, benigna Phyllis,

Ut iocundar in tranquillis,

Dum os ori iungitur
Et pectora mamillis.“

In the intensity of desire still another goliard lover envisions his
felicity as surpassing that of Jove if he could but lie with and kiss
his lady; his happiness would be such that he could die upon that
kiss:

Si me dignetur quam desidero.

Felicitate lovem supero.

Nocte cum ilia si dormiero
Si sua labra semel suxero.

Mortem subire,

Placenter obire,

Vitamque finire
Libens potero,

Hei potero, hei potero, hei potero
Tanta si gaudia recepero.'”

* “If I might hold whom I desire in the grove beneath the leaves I would kiss
[her] with joy. O sweet love!" "Veris dulcis in tempore . . . /' Carmina Btirana:
Lateinische und deutsche Lieder und Cedichte einer Handschrift des XIII lahr-
hunderts aus Benedictbeuern. Bibliothek des literarischen Vereins in Stuttgart,
XVI (Stuttgart, 1847), p. 195.

“ "Therefore do this, kind Phyllis, that I may rejoice in peace while mouth is
joined to mouth and chest to breast." "Salve ver optatum . . . ," Carmina Burana,
p. 194.

'' "If she whom I desire should think me worthy, in happiness 111 outstrip
Jove. If by night I might sleep with her, if once I might kiss her lips, [then] to
suffer death, to die willingly, and to end my life, I shall do gladly. Ha ha! I shall
do, shall do, shall do, [for] such immense delight I shall have had." "Sic mea fata
canendo solor . . . ," Carmina Burana, pp. 229-230.

105

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Besides this motif of expiring upon a kiss, that is, from an excess
of contentment in fulfillment, there is the equally significant theme of
the lover suffering cruelly and dying from the love wound, though
certain that he could be restored by a kiss from his lady:

Amare crucior, morior
Vulnere, quo glorior.

Eia, si me sanare
Uno vellet osculo,

Que cor felici iaculo
Gaudet vulnerare I"'

Like Guillaume's rabid outcry, these are all expressions of a love
that not only is carnal in desire but exults in the expectation of the
joy of full physical possession. At the same time, however, the reader
of these various poems of the Carmina Burana cannot but be struck
by the implementation of Christian sentiments and vocabulary. We
need not dwell on the transference of Christian gaudium to the joy
of sensual abandonment which seems obvious enough. Associated
with this motif but more specifically to our purpose here is the theme
of the martyr who dies for love. For the Christian, martyrdom, as
Clement of Alexandria had said, is the perfect work of love. Partic-
ularly in the last group of verses we have quoted we find a sacrilegious
application of the intensely Christian mystic theme of a death by way
of a love-wound that glorifies the martyr. In a recent discussion of
the secularization of religious sentiments of love in the Carmina
Burana, James J. Wilhelm remarked on the first two lines: "Glory in
death: this is the new Christian dimension that is utterly lacking in
Ovid, Catullus, and Sappho, where death is always a disaster. We must
go to Prudentius' hymns to the saints or to the Acta Martyrorum for
this tonality.""®

Indeed, that the death of the martyrs is a glorious victory — or,
we may say, a victory that brings the martyr to glory in the eschatolog-
ical sense of assurance of participation in the divine glory of God —
is an idea found regularly in early Christian writings. Moreover, the
expression usually employed to indicate the martyr's death is gloriosa
mors, and one also thinks of the fortune of gloria passionis.^^ The
word gloria, of course, continued to be used throughout the Christian

Loving torments me, I die from the wound in which I glory. Ah! if she would
cure me by a single kiss, how my heart would rejoice to be wounded by such a
happy dart! ' "Estas in exilium . . . ," Carmina Burana, p. 132.

106

THE MEDIEVAL LOVE LYRIC

centuries in its profane sense, and the Christian writers were fond of
contrasting the religious ideal of glory with the secular ideal. Where
martyrdom was concerned, it was only in Christ's passion that a
Christian could glory. Again a text from St. Paul served as the model :
"Mihi absit gloriari nisi in cruce Domini nostri" (Gal. 6:14), "Far be
it from me to glory in anything but the cross of our Lord." Now it is
something of the Christianized value of the word that the Burana poet
has adapted to a profane love. Despite the incommensurability be-
tween divine and human love, here a Christian sentiment has been
transposed to a human passion, charging the latter with a certain
piquancy and a new intensity.

Nonetheless, Wilhelm's characterization perhaps goes too far. The
"tonality" (to use his word) of the two verses in question cannot be
easily equated (but this may not be Wilhelm's intention) with that of
the Acta Martyronim or the Christian hymns. The total context of
the Burana poem lends a different value to the religio-erotic image em-
ployed by the secular poet. This is to be noted especially in the develop-
ment of the love-wound and balm motif in the verses following, in
which the poet calls for the restorative power of the maiden's kiss,
an appeal that for Wilhelm signals a fall from a height of idealism
if not of spirituality: "Suddenly, however, the wings of the poet droop.
He thinks about a remedy for his love-sickness: a kiss to repair the
wound created in his heart by the shaft of love. In Christian hymns, the
loving Christ is the only remedy for the sickly soul. . . . The lady's kiss
shows us that we are once again in the realm of the sensible. But as
far as this poem is concerned, we are in the realm of the sensible from
beginning to end. The verses "Amare crucior, morior/Vulnere, quo
glorior" come as the cry of pain and triumph confirming what the
poet has said up to that point, that is, that although spring and sum-
mer (the usual "seasons" of love) have gone, even in the cold of winter
he suffers the heat of passion. This poet was on no heights from which
to fall, for his lovesickness w’as still Ovidian and in no way Platonic
or Christian. In asking for the salutary kiss, he is really on the same
plane as when he proclaims himself a martyr of love; but he is not,
after all, as the Christian martyr is, a martyr for love. It is the plane
of sensual love and religious parody that he moves on all along, and
it is curious that Wilhelm does not see that the hope for balm in the
kiss, coming as it does directly upon the poet's reference to his
martyrdom, is a continuation of the religious travesty.

107

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

After making the request for the restorative kiss, the Biirana poet
dwells on the thought of the lady's sensual lips and sweet kisses, the
taste of which, he now exclaims, lifts him above the state of mere mor-
tality: "Ut me mortalem negem aliquando." The beloved's kiss can,
according to the poet's hyperbole, conquer death. Such is the meaning
here and in the following verses from another poem of the Carmina
Burana, which also repeats the lover's exultation in the love-wound
inflicted by that one or unique lady-beloved;

Unam quidem postulo
Tamen michi dari.

Cuius quidem osculo
Potest mors vitari.

Huic amoris vinculo
Cupio ligari.

Duke est hoc iaculo
Velle vulnerari.’'

Here are kisses that infuse a "grace" that sends the lover into a
state of rapture. As in the case of the other Burana poet who would die
upon his lady's lips (see above) these are kisses that derive, somewhat
ostentatiously and willfully, I believe, from the lovesickness and the
kiss of the Song of Songs even as it was being explicated by Christian
exegetes. Thus in the context of these poems of sensual love which
are charged with a religiously inspired language, the kiss can be seen
to figure prominently in the profanation of a mystic motif. In a way,
the secular poets have succeeded in reclaiming the kiss of the Song,
although one cannot help feeling that something of the mysticalness
that it had acquired as a religious symbol has been carried over with
it in the process. Nonetheless, as in the case of the troubadour Guil-
laume, these kisses, along with the poems in which we read of them,
cannot without serious reservations be equated with the kisses and
songs of troubadour fin' amors or courtly love. I do not find it pos-
sible to accept the view of those critics who, like Peter Dronke, are of
the opinion that "a substantial proportion of twelfth- and thirteenth-
century Latin love-lyrics can truly be called songs of amour courtois."~^
This is not to say that the Burana love poems are never anything
more than paeans to sensual passion. The medieval Latin poet also may

"One lady indeed I ask to be given me, by whose kiss indeed death can be
avoided. With this lovers bonds I W'ish to be bound. It is sweet to desire to be
wounded by this dart." "Tempus transit horridum," Carmina Burana, p. 180.

108

THE MEDIEVAL LOVE LYRIC

voice a desire for an amatory relationship that looks beyond physical
pleasure without necessarily excluding it. The verses that follow show
us a poet speaking of his love captivity^ then dreaming of the sweet
labor of kissing his lady mouth to mouth, only to conclude — contrary
to the usual pattern that finds the poet achieving solace and fulfillment
in the kiss or hopeful of more to come — that the meeting of lips will
not cure him until their two hearts and wills have become one heart
and one will:

Illius captus sum amore.

Cuius flos adhuc est in flore.

Dulcis fit labor in hoc labore,

Osculum si sumat os ab ore.

Non tactu sanabor labiorum.

Nisi cor unum fiat duorum
Et idem velle. Vale, flos florum!^'

It is strange that neither Wilhelm nor Dronke discuss these verses,
which seem to be pregnant with the concept of amor-amicitia that is at
the heart of some of the highest moments of the spirituality of courtly
love, just as it is at the core of the classico-Christian ideal of friend-
ship: Idem nolle et vellel But it is possible, I suppose, to read the end-
ing of the above strophe in a less idealistic key, in which case its
author would have to be classified among those more cynical and
sensual lovers for whom the kiss is not enough, and who hope that the
lady will share their desire for del plus.

The Wound of Love

The theme of the vulnus amoris merits special attention, the more
so for us in the light of the theme of the restorative or salutary kiss,

^ ''I am captive to her love whose flower is now in flower. Sweet becomes labor
in this toil when mouth takes kiss from mouth. I shall not be healed by the touch
of lips, unless one heart is made of two and desires the same. Farewell, flower of
flowers!" "Anni novi rediit novitas . . . ," Carmina Biirana, p. 145. The Ciceronian-
Augustinian tradition of friendship is to be noted in the following verses of Bern-
art de Ventadorn as the poet tells us that love between two true lovers consists in a
mutual desire to please one another; true lovers share the same desire and love
cannot be said to be worthy unless the lovers' wills are equal:

En agradar et en voler
Es I'amors de dos fis amans.

Nula res no i pot pro tener,

Si'lh vcluntatz non es egaus.

From "Chantars no pot gaire valer," in Seine Lieder, ed. C. Appel (Halle a S., 1915),
p. 86.

109

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

of which we will have yet more to say. Although the "wound of love"
by which the poet says he dies and is glorified^ "Amare crucior, morior
/ Vulnere, quo glorior," is a topos of classical literature, medieval
poets, as Renaissance poets later, derive it also from the religious
sphere, and in their application of it one hears again the echoes of the
Song of Songs and Christian writers. The Vulgate translation of the
Song has the verses (4 :g) :

Vulnerasti cor meum, soror mea sponsa,

Vulnerasti cor meum in uno oculorum tuorum,

Et in uno crine colli tui.

It is to be noted that at 2 :5 and 5 :8 of the Song the Vulgate has
the famous words "quia amore langueo" — "for I am sick with love."
On the other hand, the Septuagint Greek speaks of being wounded
by love, and this is just what we find in Rufinus' translation of Origen's
Commentary on the Song: "Quia vulnerata caritatis ego sum." It was
Origen, in fact, who first, and quite consciously, transposed the theme
of the wound caused by love's darts from pagan Eros to the Christian
God. In the Prologue to his Commentary we find the phrase vulnus
amoris and the idea that the soul "suffers" this wound happily, know-
ing it to be salvific and inflicted by the Word of God. Likewise in the
Second Homily on the Song, which was preserved in St. Jerome's
translation, Origen uses the phrase "quia vulnerata caritatis ego" and
goes on to explain that it is beautiful and praiseworthy to receive the
wounds of love.^® I find the phrase used by St. Jerome himself in his
letter [LXV, 0.2] to the virgin Principia, where it is connected with
the Song. Jerome writes to her that now that she is pierced by the
Lord's dart, she can, like the bride of the Song, exult that she is
wounded by love: "Quae iaculo Domini vulnerata cum sponsa in
Cantico canis: vulnerata caritatis ego." One of the better-known ex-
pressions of the motif is in Augustine's Confessions (IX, 2, 3):
"Sagittaveras tu cor nostrum caritate tua et gestabamus verba tua
transfixa visceribus" — "Thou hadst pierced our hearts with thy love,
and we bore thy words fixed in our bowels."

Coming down to the twelfth century, we note Hugo of Saint-
Victor's idea that there are many who carry Love's piercing arrows
in their hearts, longing for them to be driven in deeper, for wounds
caused by Love are sweet.®®

110

THE MEDIEVAL LOVE LYRIC

The One who was wounded by love first was Christ on the cross.
Commenting on the verse "Vulnerata cor meum, soror, mea sponsa/'
Honorius of Autun explains that it was for love of the Church that
Christ was wounded, for he wanted the bride to share in his glory.
Here, it is as though being scourged and being crucified were love tor-
ments. It is the theme of Christ as the supreme Martyr for love.®^ At
the outset of his De IV gradibus violentae caritatis, Richard of Saint-
Victor twice employs the expression "vulnerata caritate ego sum" in
place of the Vulgate's "quia amore langueo," although the latter phrase
is also employed by him in the same work.^^ Perhaps the most intense
descriptions of the vidnus amoris in a religious context were to come a
few centuries later in St. Francis of Sales {Trade de I' amour de Dieu,
IV, 9) and in the Spanish Carmelites St. John of the Cross and St.
Theresa of Avila. The most justly celebrated artistic representation of
this erotico-religious motif is Bernini's sculpture of the transverbera-
tion of St. Theresa's heart, in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria
at Rome.

The Kiss as Goal or Reward

Returning to the love lyric in the vernacular, let us note first that
in the work of the poets of the generation immediately following
Guillaume, there are references to the desire for kisses that are not
susceptible to the same extreme sensual interpretation that we were
able to apply to the "first" of the troubadours. At the same time, while
they have seemingly a resemblance to the examples from our medieval
Latin poems, there is really less abandonment here than in the goliards.
While intending real, even sensual kisses, they do not represent the
kiss as a preludious bliss or as a promise of further favors to come,
but rather as their ultimate goal or reward. This attitude is not found
in all the love poetry of these same troubadours but usually only
where the love is said to be that special kind that the poets call fin'
amors as opposed to a concept of false love. This is very much what
Andreas, writing after some of these poets, called pure love. The dif-
ference, however, is that the poets do not speak of refraining from
sexual intercourse as a renunciation of a final solace or consolation.
Nor do they conceive of the kiss and the embrace in the nude as a
fanning of desire as Denomy believed.®* The fact is that the

111

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

troubadours have desire enough, which does not need to be fanned by
kissing and embracing. Rather, in a number of cases, they conceive
of these intimacies as the very terminus of their true love; that is, the
conferring of the kiss and, sometimes, the nude embrace represent for
them the solace and quietude so greatly yearned for.

The poet Cercamon, for example, like so many other troubadours,
feels he will die if he is not granted the kiss and embrace of his lady :

Messatges, vai, si Deus ti guar,

E sapchas ab mi donz furmir,

Qu'eu non puesc lonjamen estar
De sai vius ni de lai guerir.

Si josta mi despoliada
Non la puesc baizar e tenir
Dins cambra encortinada.^

Despite the apparent similarity to Guillaume's kiss allusion (the kiss
in the room), the tone here is somewhat different although the ex-
pression of great desire is not less intense. But not only does Cercamon
not suggest that anything beyond this is desired; in another poem he
makes it quite clear that his desires would be fully satisfied if he could
but have a kiss from his lady:

Toz mos talenz m'aemplira
Ma domna, sol d'un bais m'aizis.®

A similar expression of the marvelous efficacy of the kiss can be
noted in some verses by Jaufre Rudel. Again the lovesick poet can be
restored by a kiss alone:

Per so m'en creis plus ma dolors
Car non ai lieis en luecs aizitz,

Que tan no fau sospirs e plors
Qu'us sols baizars per excaritz
Lo cors no'm tengues san e sau.’’

^ "Go, messenger, and God be with you. And seek to communicate with my
lady [donz]. For I cannot long endure and live nor be cured if I cannot kiss and
hold her nude in a curtained room." From "Ab lo temps qe fai refreschar," in Les
poesies de Cercamon, ed. A. Jeanroy (Paris, 1922), p. 7.

® "I would be satisfied in all my desires, my lady, if you would only grant me a
kiss." From "Per fin' Amor m'esjauzira," Les poesies de Cercamon, p. 28.

Therefore my pain is yet increased because I do not have her in suitable places.
For my sighs and tears are not such but that one kiss alone would make my heart
whole and saved." From "Pro ai del chan essenhadors," in Les chansons de Jaufre
Rudel, ed. A. Jeanroy (Paris, 1924), pp. 8-9.

112

THE MEDIEVAL LOVE LYRIC

Even allowing that Jaufre Rudel "has no expectation of possessing his
beloved," that his is "a love which does not wish to possess but to
exult in that state of non-possession," the fact remains that within his
conception of distant and good love, the kiss is thought of as that
boon which would bring salvation and fulfillment were it but granted.^^
The same can be said for Bernart de Ventadorn, in whose work
appear several allusions to kisses and embraces as the ultimate reward
or solace for which the poet longs :

Bo son tuih li mal que 'm dona;

Mas per Deu li quer un do:

Que ma bocha, que jeona,

D'un douz baizar dejeo.'

Like the first example from Cercamon, this seems to be rather close to
Guillaume's kiss. But in a different vein, Bernart has other verses in
which he says that his lady's kiss has the power to pierce him to the
heart; by this sweet kiss he is made the receiver of that true love
which transforms him from a state of deadly sullenness to one of
unequaled bliss:

Domna, per cui chan e demor.

Per la bocha 'm feretz al cor

D'un doutz baizar de fin' amor coral,

Que 'm torn en joi e'm get d'ira mortal.'*

The poet Arnaut Daniel has need of a kiss as the only balm that
can cool his burning heart, for the winter season and the snow on the
ground have no effect on his desire:

C'ab tot lo nei

M'agr' ops us bais al chaut

Cor refrezir,

Que no'i val autra goma.®

"Good and dear to me are all the ills she gives me, but, in God's name, I ask
one gift of her : that she break the fasting of my mouth with a kiss." From "Bel
m'es can eu vei la brolha," in Bernart de Ventadorn, Seine Lieder, ed. C. Appel
(Halle a S., 1915), p. 56.

‘’"Lady, for whose sake I sing and remain [true], you wound me to the heart
through the mouth with a sweet kiss of pure heartfelt love that restores me to
joy and releases me from deadly grief." From "Can par la flors josta.l vert folh,"
in Bernart de Ventadorn, Seine Lieder, p. 236.

® "Despite all the snow, I need a kiss to cool my ardent heart. No other balm
will avail." From "L'aur'amara," in Canzoni, ed. G. Toja (Florence, i960), p. 256.
In a tenso between Marcabru and Ugo Catola the latter seeks to explain that when
he is weary and melancholy his lady's kiss restores him wholly:

113

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

One may assume that in the matter of kisses a lover does not need
the advice of others; but in the case of poets who seek to give expres-
sion to their amorous sentiments and sensations^ the influence of
literary and other traditions is seldom if ever lacking. As in the goliard
poets, so too in the troubadours the dual influence of Ovid and the
Song of Songs is considerable. As for the Song, moreover, it may very
well be that not only the biblical text but contemporary theological
implementation of its erotic imagery in the context of affective mysti-
cism also exercised its fascination on the poets. We have seen how
important the image of the kiss was as a symbol of union or fulfillment
and as the symbolic vehicle for the infusion or bestowal of a super-
natural grace. We shall not repeat what has been amply demonstrated
in earlier pages, but it will be worthwhile to quote some verses from
Landri of Waben's twelfth century French allegorical paraphrase of
the Song to indicate, at the very least, the remarkable similarity be-
tween the religious and profane traditions in the choice of the kiss as
the mark of a unique blessing necessary to the well-being of the lover:

Port moi le baiser de sa boche,

Cest CO ki plus al cuer ma toche.

Ja mais naurai ne bien ne aise,

Se ses baisers ne me repaise.^

We also read that if the soul loves and serves God well (cf. the
language and concept of love service of the courtly lover), it becomes
one spirit with him (the Pauline echo). Then one will have overcome
all trials and tribulations. It is the kiss that brings (or signifies) this
union in one spirit; hence it is the kiss to which the lover of God
aspires, the kiss for which the amorous soul cries and sighs:

A soi me ioigne par esperit.

Kar CO ai io trove escrit,

Ki par amor a deu saert,

Ki tresbien laime e bien le sert.

Marcabrun, quant sui las e.m duoill,

E ma bon'amia m'acuoill

Ab un baisar, quant me despuoill,

M'en vau sans e saus e garitz.

The severe Marcabru repudiates this love in the poem. In Poesies completes du
Troubadour Marcabru, ed. J. M. L. Dejeanne (Toulouse, 1909), p. 26.

* Let him bring me the kiss of his mouth; it is that which touches my heart the
most. I shall never have well-being or ease unless his kisses give me peace."

114

THE MEDIEVAL LOVE LYRIC

Uns esperiz est avec lui.

Co vaint tot mal e tot ennui,

Cest li baisiers o io aspir,

Por cui tant pleur e tant sospir.®

The mutual influence exerted by the religious and secular tra-
ditions of amatory literature on one another in the Middle Ages was
such that if there are no specific references to the object of love or
devotion, passages of poems and even entire poems may be read in
either key. This, of course, is true of the Song of Songs itself, for it
is a secular epithalamium celebrating human love until it is subjected
to an allegorical reading in which it becomes a song of divine love.®®
So too the most famous medieval Latin love lyric combining Ovidian
(or classical) and Solomonic (i.e., the Song) echoes is the lam dulcis
arnica which, perhaps with slight variants, was "sung as a sacred
conductus at Saint-Martial or Saint-Martin in the same decades [or
slightly later] as it was performed as a sophisticated love-song."®®
While we are on this important topic — and still with the kiss and
two-in-one motifs — it should be remarked again that the same am-
biguity exists in the figurative arts, especially in objects of medieval
handicraft. In chapter i we had occasion to observe the Christian
implementation in funerary art of the kiss of Eros and Psyche. In the
Middle Ages, too, a seemingly profane content often bore a Chris-
tian significance or allegory. Hanns Swarzenski writes that "Wearing
apparel, such as buckles and containers for cosmetics are decorated
with scenes which often leave one in doubt as to whether they repre-
sent biblical subjects like David and Abisaig, or Solomon and the
Queen of Sheba, or secular love scenes such as that of Tristan and
Iseult."®’’ Now one such example of this uncertainty has to do with a
truly remarkable bronze-cast mirror from Bussen (Suabia). The handle
of the mirror is shaped in such a way as to indicate a couple so closely

® "Let him join me to himself in spirit. For I have found it written; whoever
through love would serve God, whoever loves him well and serves him well, is one
spirit with him. This conquers all evil and all trouble; it is his kiss to which I aspire,
for which I cry and sigh so greatly." The verses are as quoted in F. Ohly's
Hohelied-Studien: Gnindzuge eirter Ceschichte der Hoheliedauslegung des Ab-
endlandes bis urn 1200. Schriften der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft an der
Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitat Frankfurt am Main, Geisteswissenschaft-
liche Reihe Nr. 1 (Wiesbaden, 1958), pp. 289-290. Landri of Waben's poem, circa
3000 verses, was written between 1276 and 1181 and paraphrases the Song up to
V, 14. It is preserved in Le Mans: Bibliotheque publique, MS 173, fol. 33''-2i2''.
See Jean Bonnard, Les traductions de la Bible en vers frangais au moyen age (Paris,
1884), p. 254.

115

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

embraced that they appear to be a single figure from the waist down,
while from the waist up the fused two-in-one figure divides only
slightly enough to distinguish the two lovers in the act of kissing.
(Fig. 13.) The man's right arm is crooked in a V-shape with the hand
caressing the face of the woman, while the heads are nestled into each
other. The identification of the couple is no easy matter, and the dis-
agreement on the part of art critics illustrates our point. Swarzenski,
for example, holding the mirror to be the work of the thirteenth
century, suggests the figures are Tristan and Iseult, whose story be-
came popular in Germany only at that time through the version of
Gottfried of Strassbourg. But this interpretation has been rejected by
Heinrich Kohlhaussen, who dates the piece around the middle of the
twelfth century (the argument does not seem totally convincing to me)
and holds that the figures may represent the Bridegroom (Christus
Sponsns) and the bride (sponsa ecclesia) of the Song.®*

The Kiss Bestows a Grace

In the context of true love or fm’ amors, the troubadours' in-
sistence upon the marvelous and quieting (not inflammatory) effects
of the kiss strongly suggests that they attributed to it something of a
mysto-magical value. To be kissed by the beloved was to receive an
unparalleled grace. We note, in fact, that in a poem by Bernart Marti
the kiss is clearly connected with the important courtly love theme
of the ennoblement of the lover. That Love or Charity ennobles or
makes one more virtuous and worthy is, of course, an important con-
cept in Christianity. In particular, the infusion of grace (which is a
gift of the Divine Love) elevates man to a supernatural sphere of
activity and allows him to perform salutary acts. The troubadours,
however, attributed analogous ennobling power to the love and kiss
of a lady. Our poet, claiming to be a perfect lover of an excellent and
pure lady, speaks of receiving from her kiss the gift that ennobles him:

Pero ges ieu no'm n'esmai
Del ben qu'm n'avenha.

Gen baizen m'estrena
De que m'asenhora.**

"Wherefore I am not worried about the good that may come to me from her.
In sweetly kissing me, she offers me that gift whereby I am ennobled." From
"Amar dei," in Les poesies de Bernart Marti, ed. E. Hoepffner (Paris, 1929), p. 3.

116

1. The Kiss. Rock-hewn.
A.D. 600-850 In the
Kailasa Temple, Elura.

2. The Kiss and Copulation
of Two Gods. Pre-Columbian
(Aztec) Mexican pictograph
in the Codex Borgia.

9. Justice and Peace Have Kissed lo. The Kiss
(Psalm 84:11). Detail from a miniature Peter and Paul,
in a late fifteenth century manuscript Palermo,
of the Golden Legend. Paris, Biblio-
theque Nationale, ms. franc. 244, fol.

107.

of Peace exchanged by Saints
. Mosaic in the Palatin Chapel,

11. The Kiss of the Bride
and Bridegroom. "Oscul-
etur me osculo oris sui.”
Miniature illustrating the
opening of the Song of
Songs. In the Bible said to
have been Saint Bernard's.

First half of the twelfth
century. Bibliotheque de
Troyes, ms. 458-.

12. Secular Lovers Kissing
and Fusing into One. Min-
iature from a fourteenth
century Venetian manu-
script containing Cecco
d'Ascoli's Acerha. Biblio-
teca Medicco-Laurenziana,
ms. Plut. 40, 52.

L5. The First Kiss of Lancelot and Guinevere. From Lancelot du Lac (M. 805), c. 1310
Pierpont Morgan Library, Lewis Cass Ledyard Fund, 1938.

16. Luxuria. Relief representation
of the vice on the Cathedral

at Amiens, France. y,'-’' ‘

Date c. 1225.

17 - The Kiss, by A. Rodin. Marble, the Musee de Luxembourg, Paris.

20. Enlaced Couple. From the Cave of
Ain Sakhri. Wilderness of Judah. Natufi
art. Sixth-Seventh millenium b.c.

19. The Kiss, by C. Brancusi. Formed from
a single block of stone. In the Montparnasse
cemetery, Paris.

22. The Throne of Grace. \'ertical anthropo-zoomorphic Trinity. Min-
iature from a Missal of the twelfth century. Cambrai ; Bibliotheque
Municipale, ms. 234, fob 2.

23- "Dixit Dominus Domino meo: sede a dextris meis"
(Psalm 109). Horizontal anthropo-zoomorphic Trinity.
From the fourteenth century Petites Heures of Jean, Duke
of Berry. Paris, Biblioth^ue Nationale, lat. 18014, fol. 137'.

24. PolipJuhis Kissed Back to Life by Polia. Woodcut from the Dream
of PolipJiihis (Hypnerotomachia Poliphili), printed at Venice by Aldus
in 1499.

THE MEDIEVAL LOVE LYRIC

As in Christian divine love, so too in fin' amors the kiss sym-
bolizes the consummation of the poet's love, whereby long-suffering
desire is rewarded with a nonpareil beatitude. The very thought of
obtaining this gift from his lady is enough to ecstasize the true lover ;

De martir pogra for cofes
Midons, ab un bays solamens;

Et ieu fora'n totztemps jauzens
S'a lieys plagues que lo'm dones,

Qu'adoncs agr'ieu complitz totz mos demans;

Que, quan m'albir qui suy ni qals seria,

De sol I'albir suy quays cum s'ieu l'avia.‘

This extraordinary role and the unique symbolic value attributed
to the kiss in the troubadour lyric are evidenced also (though less
frequently) in the lyrics of the Minnesiinger despite the opinion that
"kisses are somewhat out of place in the rarified atmosphere of
hohe minne."^^ Friedrich von Husen, who has been "wounded" with
love, claims that the kiss of his lady's mouth would profit an emperor;
and Heinrich von Morungen, likewise "wounded," is confident that
if he could but steal a kiss from his lady's lips he would be healed.^”
But it is the greatest of the Minnesanger, Walter von de Vogelweide,
who best exemplifies the motif. His deeply wounded heart can be re-
stored to health only if he is kissed by his Hiltegunde:

Mines herzen tiefu wunde
Diu muoz iemer often sten.

Si enkiisse mich mit friundes munde.

Mines herzen tiefu wunde
Diu muoz iemer offen sten.

Si enheiles uf und uz von grunde.

Mines herzen tiefu wunde
Diu muoz iemer offen sten.

Sin werde heit von Hiltegunde.^

' "My lady can change me from a martyr into a blessed man just by a kiss. And
I would be forever in joy, if it but pleased her to grant it to me. Then all my
desires would be fulfilled. For when I think of what I am and what I would then
be, by this thought alone I am filled with joy as if I already had it." From "Ja
tant no cugey que'm trigues," in Cuilhem Peire de Cazals, Troubadour du XIP
siecle, ed. Jean Mouzat (Paris, 1954), p. 45.

^ "My heart's deep wound, you must stay open always so that she may kiss me
with friendly mouth. My heart's deep wound, vou must stay open always so that
you may be cured completely. My heart's deep wound, you must stay open always
to be healed by Hildegund." From the lyric beginning "Die mir in dem winter
froide hant benomen." In Die Lieder Walthers von der Vogelweide, II (Die Liebe-
slieder), ed. Friedrich Maurer (Tubingen, 1962), p. 152.

117

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

And in another lyric, Walter avows that if he could have but one
kiss from his lady's red mouth, he would be forever consoled :

Wurde mir ein kus noch zeiner stunde
Von ir roten munde.

So waer ich an froiden wol genesen.'^

It is a fact of some consequence that in the successors to the
troubadours, the Italian poets of the manner known as il dolce stil novo,
it is difficult if not impossible to find allusions to the kiss and other
such intimacies, at least as far as their poetry in the sweet new style is
concerned. The poets of this current etherealized love of donna beyond
anything dreamed of by the troubadours, and we will find Dante as
the culminating point of this tradition in the Vita Nuova making it
clear that the most he hoped for and what he thrived on was not a
kiss from his lady but her greetings (See chapter 4, n. 9). Thus it is
interesting, to say the least, that in a poem outside this vein, Guido
Guinizelli expressed a desire for a kiss which is bluntly satyric:

Ah, prender lei a forza, oltra su' grato,

E baciarli la bocca e '1 bel visaggio
E li occhi suoi, ch'en due fiamme di foco!'

Perhaps one should not be too surprised to find that the very
"father" of the sweet new style could sound like the troubadour-prince
Guillaume. For the better poets of the Middle Ages, like those of any
age, were as much influenced by, as they were influencers of, literary
conventions. So it is that in a pastourelle, which genre commonly re-
garded love's consummation as a full physical possession, another
still novo poet, Guido Cavalcanti, in a twist that is particularly relevant

"Could I have a kiss one more lime from your red mouth, so would I be fully
saved [restored] by joy." From the lyric "Mueste ich noch geleben daz ich die
rosen." Die Lieder, II, p. 64. At this point we may insert some German verses of
a more popular tone that contain the motif; the second strophe of the poem
"Chume, chume geselle min" {Carmina Biirana, 136a). Here it is the maid who
calls out to her lover to "cure" her with his sweet red mouth:

Siiezer rosenvarwer munt.

Chum und mache miche gesunt;

Chum und mache miche gesunt,

Siiezer rosenvarwer munt.

In Anthologie du Minnesang, ed. Andre Moret (Paris, 1949), 95.

i "Oh, to take her by force against her will and kiss her mouth and lovely face
and her eyes that are two flames of fire!" From the sonnet "Chi vedesse a Lucia
un var cappuzzo," in I Rimatori del dolce stil novo, ed. G. R. Ceriello (Milano,
1950), p. 36.

118

THE MEDIEVAL LOVE LYRIC

to our discussion, sounds rather like the poet of the lai des pucelles
quoted earlier when he states that the extreme solace and favor (or
grace), that he asked of his obliging shepherdess was her consent to
be kissed and embraced:

Merze le chiesi sol che di baciare

E d'abbracciare le fosse 'n volere.™

And this was evidently enough, as the end of the poem has it, to send
the poet into an ecstasy wherein he beheld the god of love.

With these examples now before us, it may be instructive here
to note the presence of the kiss motif in a context that has ties with
neither Christian mysticism nor the troubadour love lyric. In the Greek
Anthology, which is replete with kisses, there is an epigram by a cer-
tain Rufinus, of whom all that can be said is that he lived sometime
between the second and sixth centuries a.d. : "Thou hast Hera's eyes,
Melite, and Athena's hands, the breasts of Aphrodite, and the feet
of Thetis. Blessed is he who looks on thee, thrice blessed he who hears
thee talk, a demigod he who kisses thee, and a god [immortal] he who
takes thee to wife." (V, 94).^^ The basic idea behind this is that poses-
sion of the beloved can raise one to a condition that is above the
ordinary. To kiss the beloved is to become divine. But what, then, one
may well ask, is the difference between Rufinus' hyperbole expressing
rapture and the hyperbolizing of the troubadours? The answer, I
think, has to do with the Christian heritage of the latter. The kiss
Rufinus speaks of is much like that found in Cavalcanti's pastoiirelle,
a purely sensual bliss, but it is unlike those aspired to in the poems of
fin' amors. When the various moments of osculation referred to herein
are seen in their historical and psychosexual contexts, it may not be
excessive to say that in troubadour fin' amors the kiss has much the
same role as in the mystics' description of Christian divine love. The
Christian mystic kiss signified the gift of the Holy Spirit whereby
the soul is "ennobled" and made worthy of the union with God. At the
same time, the kiss is itself the symbol of that union. It is true, of
course, that the fin' amors of the troubadours is a love of creatures,
but it is now generally agreed that the practitioner of true love desired
something more than a momentary gratification of a physical desire.
Professor Valency has neatly stated what we may call the "mystic"
character of fin' amors: "What in general, the True Lover expected of

“ "Grace [or reward] I asked of her, that she but wish to kiss and embrace."

119

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

his beloved was not a temporary physical appeasement; it was a per-
petual benediction; he looked to his lady not for satisfaction, but for
blessedness. This blessedness proceeded from the unique psychic ex-
change which love brings about, that mutual acceptance which makes
two hearts beat as one, puts two souls in one breast, and conjures up
all the other psychophysical miracles of the romantic genre. To this
we may add that the blessedness and, eventually, the psychophysical
miracles of which Valency speaks were often intimately connected with
the kiss, by which means they were to be effected as by a sacramental
rite.

The Heart's Migration in the Kiss

Given the presence in the medieval love lyric of the motifs of the
migration and exchange of hearts or souls (or the lover's self) one
would expect to find the kiss motif used in connection with one or the
other of these metaphors of ecstatic love. It is somewhat curious, I
think, that this connection seems not to have been made by the earliest
troubadours, although it may be implicit in their allusions to the kiss
in the examples we have recorded. There are, however, some strik-
ing examples in the vernacular lyric of the late twelfth and the thir-
teenth centuries which reveal that by then such a conceit as the loss
or surrender of the lover's heart through a kiss was familiar enough,
for it occurs not only in Proveni^al but in French and Italian poets as
well."*® We may observe its appearance first in the troubadour Folquet
de Romans, who begins one of his poems with the memory of a kiss by
which his lady drew his heart from his body. (We see here also the
play on cor-cors) :

Ma bella domna, per vos dei esser gais,

C'al departir me dones un dolz bais.

Tan dolzamen, lo cor del cors me trais
Lo cor avez, domna, qu'eu lo vos lais."

Two further things to be noted here because of their frequent recur-
rence in subsequent examples of the conceit are that it is a kiss given

" "My beautiful lady, I should be gay through you, for when we departed you
gave me a sweet kiss, so sweetly, you drew my heart from my body. You now
have my heart, lady, for I left it with you." From "Ma bella domna, per vos dei
esser gais," in Die gedichte des Folquet von Romans, ed. R. Zenker (Halle, 1896),
p. 45.

120

THE MEDIEVAL LOVE LYRIC

at parting and that the heart is drawn by an irresistible sweetness.
The poet's heart, moreover, is left with the lady.

I find two cases of the conceit in the most famous of the twelfth
century French trouveres, Gace Brule. In the first we again see that
it is the sweetness of the kiss that has enraptured the poet's heart:

Uns douz besiers me fu si savorez
Que je ne sai se mes cuers m'est enblez,

Mes centre moi s'en est en li entrez.“

The poet's heart has entered the breast of the lady, but the poet asks
for its return by way of another kiss, a theme that later was to be
especially popular with the Renaissance poets:

Douce dame, por vostre signorie.

For vostre prix et por vostre valor,

Se VOS ameis ne pou ne bien ma vie.

Vers VO bouche m'estuet reprendre un tour:

Einsi VOS pri ke mon cuer me rendeis.’’

The same conceit of the heart stolen or enraptured by the kiss and
left to dwell with the lady appears in another poem by Gace Brule,
where the poet lingers even more on the motif of the sweet drawing
of his heart in a kiss, thus accentuating the sensual element of the
image:

En besant mon cuer me ravi
Ma douce dame gente;

Trop fu fous quant il me guerpi
Pour li qui me tourmente!

Las ! ain nel senti,

Quant de moi parti:

Tant doucement le me toli

Qu'en sospirant le trest a li.'*

° "A sweet kiss was of such sweetness to me that I know not whether my heart
was stolen from me. But to my detriment, it has left me and entered into her."
From "Ne puis faillir a bone chanson fere," in Trouveres et Minnesanger : Receuil
de Textes, ed. Istvan Frank (Saarbriicken, 1952), p. ill.

P "Sweet lady, by your command, by your worth and merit, if you at all care
for my life, allow me to approach your mouth again. And I beg you to return my
heart to me." Trouveres et Mintresdnger, p. i8z. These verses are found in only
one of the seven manuscripts containing the poem. They are given by Frank among
the notes.

'‘"In kissing me, my sweet and gentle lady bereft me of my heart; too foolish
was it to leave me for that one who torments me! Alas, I did not feel it when it
went from me, so sweetly did she take it from me drawing it to herself in a sigh."
From "Les oisillons de mon pais," in Carla Cremonesi, Lirica francese del medioevo
(Milan, 1955), p. 115.

121

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

The next example of the conceit is from one of the better Italian
poets of the Sicilian School, Rinaldo d' Aquino. In the lyric "Amorosa
donna fina," the poet complains to his lady that, for all his service,
he has never received any reward other than a single kiss, and this
has proved a disastrous boon inasmuch as his heart was thereby up-
rooted from his body and given to the beloved, leaving the poor lover
in doubt as to how he is to live without a heart:

Gioco e riso mi levate
Membrando tutta stagione
Che d'amor vi fui servente
Ne de la vostra amistate
Non ebb'io anche guiderdone
Se no un bacio solamente.

E quel bascio mi 'nfiammao,

Che dal corpo mi levao
Lo core e dedilo a vui.

Degiateci provedere:

Che vita p6 Tomo avere
Se lo cor non e con lui?’’

One of the most singular uses of the conceit occurs in a poem by
the troubadour Raimbaut d'Orange. Though enamoured of the poet's
lady, God restrains himself by not abducting her to himself by a kiss:

Gran esfort fai Dieus, qar sofer

C'ab si no la 'npueja baizan!

Mas no-m vol tolre ni tort far.®

This somewhat surprising and daring implementation of the image
recalls the medieval mystic idea of a death by the kiss of the Lord,
in particular the Jewish conception of the death of the righteous by
the mouth (kiss) of God, but it is not possible to ascertain whether

^ "Joy and laughter you take from me when I remember all the time that I have
been your servant for love's sake; from your friendship I have had no reward
except one kiss only. And that kiss inflamed me, so much that it took my heart
from my body and gave it to you. You ought to make some provision for me in
this case: what life can a man have if his heart is not with him?" From "Amorosa
donna fina," in Le rime della scuola siciliana, 1 , ed. Bruno Panvini (Florence, 1962),
pp. 111-112.

® "God shows great strength, because He restrains himself from raising her,
kissing, up to him! But He does not wish to take her from me or do me wrong."
From the poem "Ben sai c'a sels seria fer," in Walter T. Pattison, The Life and
Works of the Troubadour Raimbaut d'Orange (Minneapolis, 1952), p. 143. I have
also used Pattison's English translation of the verses.

122

THE MEDIEVAL LOVE LYRIC

there is a direct connection between the two. For the rest, we may note
that the idea of the beloved desired by God figures in the canzone
"Donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore" of Dante's Vita Nuova. Only
God's compassion for man causes him to allow Beatrice to tarry yet
a while on earth.

I have suggested that the specific motif of an actual exchange of
hearts which is not merely attested but indeed effected by the kiss is
not easy to find in the medieval lyric poets. But again a German lyric
of the thirteenth century in which it does occur suggests that the
topos was, in fact, well known. Here the occasion is a painful parting
between a knight and his beloved, and, as the two offer hearts to one
another, the author, Ulrich von Winterstetten, states explicitly by way
of conclusion that the exchange took place with a kiss:

Owe und ach! der jamerbaeren scheiden

Ir beider herze brach.

Das [da] geschach von den gelieben beiden :

Daz schuof in ungemach.

Der ritter sprach 'gehabe dich wol !

Din lip ist maniger tugende vol:

Min herze dir belibet hie.'

Si sprach 'so fiiere min herze hin.'

Der wehsel da mit kus ergie.*

In the following chapter we will see that the medieval romance
was particularly receptive to this motif, which, like other erotic con-
ventions, it enriched by means of a fuller and more elaborate context
of a tale of love.

^"Alas and alack! both their hearts broke because of the painful parting which
took place between the beloved couple. That caused them pain. The knight said,
'Take care of yourself. You [your body] are full of virtue. My heart remains here
with you.' And she replied; 'Then let my heart go [with you].' The exchange [of
hearts] took place with a kiss." From the poem "Bi liebe lac . . . in Poets of the
Minnesang, ed. Olive Sayce (Oxford, 1967), p. 177.

123

4 . JVledieval Love Legends

Flamenca

he conceits of ecstatic love that we have been consider-
ing within the context of medieval profane love received
one of their most attractive applications in that beau-
tiful work of Provencal literature (and one of the most
charming books of the Middle Ages), the thirteenth century ro-
mance Flamenca. Here again we meet with the swoon of the ecstasied
lover (Guillem) whose spirit is wafted by love to the room in the tower
where the beloved (Flamenca) is kept prisoner by a jealous husband:

Fin' amors I'esperit I'en mena
Lai en la tor on si jasia

Flamenca

(2147-21.49)®

But this lover also complains to Love and wishes that his body were
there where his heart is, for without his heart he can scarcely be said
to be alive:

Mon cor ai lai en celle torre,

E si -1 cors VOS non lai metes,

Sapias que perdut m'aves.

Ses cor nom pot horn gaire viure.

(2690-2693)*'

And as long as he is alone in loving, he must die and die alone (4597-
4399). Ideally, however, when love is reciprocal, although lovers out-
wardly seem to be two, inwardly they are one; for love unites the
two in one:

Mais amors es cais elemens
Simples e purs, clars e luzens,

E fai seen de dos cors u,

Quar si met egal en cascu;

® "True love led his spirit there in the tower where Flamenca lay." The edition
of flamenca used is that in Les Troubadours, Jaufre, flamenca, Barlaam et
Josaphat, ed. and trans. Rene Lavaud and Rene Nelli (Paris, i960).

^ "I keep my heart there in that tower, and if you do not place my body there,
know that you have ruined me. Without a heart, man can hardly live."

124

MEDIEVAL LOVE LEGENDS

Us es dedins e dui defers,

Et ab un cor Ha dos cors.

(2076— 2o8i)‘^

Such passages as these show that the Flamenca, like other
medieval romances, is also partially a treatise on love. In this respect,
one of the most important sections of the poem (vss. 6658 ff.) is taken
up with a discussion of the relative merits and roles of the eyes and
the mouth (kiss) in love. The eyes are said to be superior, on the
grounds that the sweetness that lovers derive from gazing into each
other's eyes is both purer and more complete, or, we may say, more
spiritual than that which comes through the lips. The reason for this
is that the eyes are themselves the most spiritual of the senses and thus
constitute a pure passageway for love; the sweetness that is conveyed
by them moves swiftly and directly to the heart. In the kiss, on the
other hand, the mouth cannot help retaining some of the sweetness for
itself, thereby delaying arrival to the heart. Nonetheless, although the
gazing into each other's eyes is judged the more truly perfect joy of
love (inasmuch as it permits the lovers to pass into each other's heart),
the author allows that the kiss may be a seal or warranty that the
lover is experiencing that perfect joy. It is clear that the author is
here talking of fin' amors as opposed to what Andreas calls mixed love,
for he himself tells us that his views will not be shared by those who
can kiss and still go right on to other intimacies. The true lover, on the
other hand, even during the kiss and embrace, will not forget the joy
of love that derives from the eyes. The author is insistent here in
claiming that the intimacies of the kiss and embrace are understood
by the true lover only in those terms dictated to him by reason, merci,
and conscience: the eyes are the gateway of true love {fin amors) and
the kiss the sign of its joy or fruition. We recall that Andreas had
said that pure love "joins together the hearts of two lovers in a perfect
delight," and that it consists "in the contemplation of minds and the
affection of hearts." It is obvious, I think, that the allusion to the lovers
gazing into one another's eyes in the Flamenca passage is meant to
define love as just such a contemplation of the mind and affection of
the heart. Each of the lovers sees his heart in the mirror, that is, in the
eyes, of the other. The same passage, moreover, goes on to speak ex-

' "Love is an element, as it were, simple and pure, clear and bright, that often
makes one heart of two, when it rests equally in each one. Inwardly it is one, out-
wardly two. And it binds two into one heart."

125

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

plicitly of fm' amors binding the lovers' hearts so intimately together
that if one should happen to be absent the other feels itself failing.

Yet, if in this passage the eyes are ultimately considered to be
the superior vehicle of love, it is not long before we come across some
verses in which the author describes that most mystical or magical
of love's miracles, the exchange of hearts, as being effected by the kiss
itself. It is significant that in this case where, as with Ulrich von
Winterstetten's couple, a complete exchange takes place, the love is
reciprocal and the kiss occurs at the parting of the lovers, who find it
impossible to separate until Flamenca herself hits upon and explains
the rationale of this marvelous expediency:

Mais Flamenca, coma cortesa,

Ab son amic dos motz parlet,

E dis : "Amix," pueis lo baiset,

"Ab cest baisar mon cor vos liure,

E prenc lo vostre que-m fai viure."

Guillems respon: "Domna, eu-1 prenc

Per tal covinent eu-'l retenc

Ques ieu en luec del mieu lo tenga,

E prec vos del mieu vos sovenga."

(6888-6896)“

Here the mutual transformation of lover and beloved into one an-
other by way of the kiss is entire. The lovers will be with each other
even in separation and absence, each living with the life, that is, the
heart, of the other.

The sophisticated love psychology of the Flamenca reaches into
another area of the kiss theme that has been and will continue to be
of interest to us. This has to do with the connection — so important
and so pervasive in the early and medieval Christian centuries — be-
tween the idea of peace (also salus) and the kiss. In the Flamenca the
religious nature of this liturgical association is made to serve as the
context of a pseudodivine economy within which a profane love be-
gins to have its realization.

In order to observe the inaccessible Flamenca, whom he has not
yet seen (she is closely guarded by the typical jealous husband of the

'•“But Flamenca, as a lady of courtesy, spoke yet sweetly to her lover, saying:
'My love,' and here she kissed him, 'by this kiss I deliver my heart to you and
take yours by which I may live.' Guillem replied: 'Lady mine, I take it and in
accordance with your terms will guard it, to keep in place of my own, and I pray
you care for mine.' ''

126

MEDIEVAL LOVE LEGENDS

courtly-Iove tradition), Guillem has stationed himself in the choir of
the church in which she attends services. When Flamenca enters and
makes her way into her private pew, her face is veiled. But the sun
streaming down on her head causes her to appear as a glowing ef-
fulgence, and at this point, apparently in accord with the order of the
liturgical service, Guillem intones the signum sahitis, a phrase which,
given the situation, is already ambiguous enough to suggest the ac-
cent is on an erotic connotation of solus. The erotic element, at any
rate, becomes quite overt in what follows when the Pax, a breviary in
this case, is presented by the altar boy to be kissed by Flamenca.
Guillem is able to espy the scene only from a distance and only
through a hole in the choir screen, behind which he sits. What he sees
and what the author focuses on — through the hole — is Flamenca's
pretty little red mouth, "sa bella boqueta vermeilla," in the act of
kissing the breviary. When the altar boy returns to the choir, Guillem
asks at what page he offers the Pax and, upon being shown, falls to
kissing it ecstatically over and over in a lover's passion that is mistaken
for religious piety (vss. 24S9-2607).

This contextual ambiguity is further elaborated the second time
Guillem sees Flamenca in church. Now, before the altar boy proceeds
to offer the Pax to Flamenca, Guillem instructs him that the place to
be kissed is the verse "Fiat pax in virtute" (Psalm 121:7). Guillem's
reason for this choice is that when David completed the Book of
Psalms, he enjoined his son Solomon — whose very name, we remem-
ber, means peace — to kiss precisely that verse, indeed, that very word
peace daily; and for as long as Solomon followed that admonishment,
his kingdom enjoyed the maximum state of peace (vss. 3155-3170).
Here then the traditional equation kiss=peace is to the fore, but the
subtle pun involved depends on the situational irony of the scene.
As Guillem's explanation would have it, the religious admonishment
that peace is to be found in righteousness carries with it the obligation
of a ritual act of kissing. In the case of Guillem, who is righteous or,
better, "virtuous" in the courtly-love sense, "peace," again in the
courtly-love or erotic sense, is to be had in the kisses of Flamenca.^

Among the kisses in medieval literature of profane love, few are
as clearly mystico-magical as the kiss of parting we find in the
Flamenca and in Ulrich von Winterstetten. Nonetheless, the medieval
romances offer us other such kisses that were then and are now much
better known. Our inquiry would be incomplete without reference to

127

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

three of the most remarkable and popular love legends of the Middle
Ages, those dealing with the pairs Lancelot and Guinevere, Tristan
and Iseult, and Pyramus and Thisbe, this last of ancient provenance
deriving from Ovid. Though chronologically they precede (in their
earliest forms) the Flamenca and some of the lyric poets we have men-
tioned, these legends are best dealt with here because of the continued
development they underwent and also because they will lead us most
naturally to Dante, the poet who must perforce conclude this chapter.

Lancelot and Guinevere

We will later see that the kiss exchanged between Lancelot and
Queen Guinevere in the prose Lancelot was to have an eternal echo
in Dante's Divine Comedy, but it must first be recorded here as a
classic example of the kiss as a bestowal of an immeasurable boon
conferred by the beloved (the lady) in the role of a superior being. This
is in keeping with the kiss of the courtly-love tradition which the
Lancelot-Guinevere love affair also agrees with in its character of an
adulterous relationship. Though he is an intrepid knight who has
proven himself a model of valor for love of the queen, Lancelot is
exceedingly timid (indeed he trembles) when it comes to declaring
his feelings to her. It is his friend Galehaut who arranges for a meet-
ing between the couple and then successfully solicits the queen to kiss
Lancelot. Though the queen is glad to comply even to the point of the
kiss, she is just circumspect enough to fear being seen by others who
are nearby. Again Galehaut supplies the strategy that allows the
couple to kiss. He will stay in the company of the lovers and the three
will draw close, pretending to be in earnest conversation; then, at an
opportune moment, the lovers will kiss, with Galehaut literally be-
tween them. Though the heads of Lancelot and Guinevere are in-
clined toward one another, the knight is still hesitant, so that it is the
queen who takes the initiative; holding the hero by the chin, she kisses
him long: "Lors se traient tout troi ensamble et font samblant de
conseillier. Et la roine voit que li chevaliers nen ose plus faire, si le
prent par le menton et le baise devant Galahot asses longement."*^

® “Then they draw together, all three, and pretend to take counsel. And the
queen sees that the knight dares not do more, so she takes him by the chin and
kisses him in front of Galehaut for quite a long time." The Vulgate Version of the
Arthurian Romances edited from Manuscripts in the British Museum by H. Oskar
Sommer, III, Le livre de Lancelot del Lac, Part I (Washington, agio), 263.

128

MEDIEVAL LOVE LEGENDS

That Galehaut should be so conspicuously present at this lovers'
kiss may well strike us as a strange thing. But it may help to remem-
ber that it was he, in fact, who had asked the queen to kiss Lancelot
as a pledge of true love and to do so in his (Galehaut's) presence:
"Mais ore covient commencement de suerte. . . . Dont le baisies devant
moi par commencement damor vraie."^ These words of Galehaut, in-
cidentally, also make it clear that there never was any real question
about Guinevere being the one who was expected to give the kiss after
all. The kiss given here figures as a solemnizing if not a sacramental
act, much like the one used at the ceremonies of betrothal and of feudal
homage where it was given before witnesses.' The latter ceremony is
perhaps the more pertinent in the present case. Among the rites as-
sociated with the contract of vassalage was the osciilum which sealed
the obligations made by lord and vassal. In this ceremony it was the
lord who conferred the kiss, especially when it was to be on the mouth.
(The vassal might kiss the feet of the lord.)^ Now it appears that also
in the medieval love-service ritual — in which the lady held the po-
sition to the lover that in feudal homage the lord held to the vassal —
when the lady finally consented to accept the suppliant lover as her
faithful man, the act of amatory homage was modeled on the ceremony
of the feudal contract of vassalage. The oath of service and homage
made by the drut (loyal love-servant) was sealed by a kiss from the
lady. Most often this was the first and only kiss.^ Such, however, was
not to be the case with Lancelot and Guinevere; and, indeed, even in
reference to this their first kiss, which must certainly be considered
one of the major documents of the ritual of medieval love-service,
nothing of what we have said detracts from its enervatingly sensual
character. As the text says, it was a long kiss.

Another point worth noting in connection with this episode
is that when Guinevere agrees to accept Lancelot's love and service
and to bless him with her own love in return, she expresses the motif
of the union or psychic exchange of lovers in language that echoes the
leitmotif of the Song of Songs ("I am my beloved's and he is mine") :
"Dame, fait Galahos, grans merci, et ie vous pri que vos li [to Lancelot]
dones vostre amor et que vous le prenes a vostre chevalier tous iours,
et devenes sa loiax dame a tous les iors de vostre vie. Si lavres fait plus
riche que se vous li donnies tout le monde. Ensi fait ele lotroi ie que

^ “But this is the time to begin the pledge. . . . And so do you kiss him in front
of me as the beginning of true love." Loc. cit.

129

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

il soil tons miens et ie soie toute siene."^ The request for the kiss is
made immediately following this avowal as though it were to be not
merely the symbol, but the very vehicle for effecting the psycho-
physical union implied in the queen's words. How greatly the Lancelot-
Guinevere kiss impressed the medieval mind is attested by its treat-
ment in the art of the time. It is the subject of one of the most beautiful
miniatures inspired by the entire Arthurian literature. (Fig. 15).

Tristan and Iseult

Even more popular than the love story of Lancelot and Guinevere
was that of Tristan and Iseult. When the various fragments and ver-
sions of the Tristan legend are considered as a composite whole, it may
be said to offer a small but extraordinary gallery of medieval uses of the
kiss. Before the episode of the fatal love potion, there is a moment
when Iseult, having learned that Tristan is the knight who slew her
uncle Morhaut, threatens to kill him while he is bathing. But upon
being persuaded of the justification of Tristan's action and of his good
will to her, she kisses him (with no erotic intent) on the mouth as a
sign of reconciliation and peace.® This is followed shortly by a scene
in which the infuriated barons of Ireland are about to wreak their own
vengeance upon Tristan; but they too are immediately appeased when
they see their king kiss Tristan upon the mouth. This particular kiss
has special interest, for it apparently marked not only a reconciliation
but the establishment of something approaching brotherhood or, at
the very least, membership in the group or clan, such a ceremonial
usage being yet another symbolic and magic implementation of the
kiss in the Middle Ages. At any rate, the solemnity attached to this
kiss in the Tristan legend is further evidenced by the fact that in kiss-
ing Tristan, the king was fulfilling a promise which had been elicited
from him by his daughter Iseult. And that promise was absolutely
binding because it had itself been sealed by a kiss!®

There are a number of kisses exchanged by knights that are
recorded in the Tristan legend, but it is the lovers that must occupy us

"Lady, said Galehaut, thank you, and I beg you to give him [Lancelot] your
love and to take him for your knight for always, and become his loyal lady for
all the days of your life. Indeed you have made him richer than if you gave him
the whole world. She made [the oath] thus: I accept that he be entirely mine and
that I be entirely his." The Vulgate Version, p. 263. My italics.

130

MEDIEVAL LOVE LEGENDS

here. The legend records the first kiss of passion between Tristan and
Iseult. It occurs, as is to be expected, shortly after they have inad-
vertently drunk the love-potion that had been meant for Iseult and
Tristan's uncle and lord. King Mark. Much has been written about
the role of the love-philtre, but it were best not to become entangled in
that question here. Even if we allow that the drinking of the magic
aphrodisiac symbolizes the ineluctable or fatalistic nature of a pas-
sionate and irrational love, we must nonetheless recognize that it also
signals the crystallizing and awareness of desire for one another in
the unsuspecting couple. The first natural reaction to that mutual
awakening and confession is the coming together in a kiss (so different
from the couple's earlier kiss of peace) that seals the lovers in a psychic
union which is to last until death. Indeed, in the ecstasy of that first
lover's kiss and embrace, Tristan even calls for death. ^ But more than
a surrender to death, this call is really love's challenge to death, for
note, it is Iseult's maid Brangane who, when she sees the couple kiss,
warns them that they have drunk both love and death. In response to
this the lovers embrace again, and as they are "trembling with desire
and life" throughout their bodies, Tristan exclaims, "Let death come
then." This is said in the confident spirit of one who feels that love —
even as human passion — is as strong as death.

Of such passionate kisses there are many in the legend: one there
is, however, that is truly unique for its psychophysical or mystical
implications. Most fully recorded in the great German version (c. izao)
of Gottfried von Strassburg, it is, significantly, a kiss given at a pain-
ful parting of the lovers in Iseult's orchard. Knowing that he and the
queen have been fully discovered in their unlawful love by King
Mark, Tristan must flee from the court. Protesting that he will forever
carry the queen in his heart, he pleads that she in turn carry him for-
ever in hers. Then he asks for a parting kiss. But before suffering him
to leave, Iseult gives him a ring and expounds the principles of the
love that has forever bound them into a oneness of heart, body, and
life. If Tristan dies, then her own life dies. In watching over her own
life she will be caring for Tristan, but their common life is also in
Tristan's keeping. Then as she invites him to the kiss, she reminds him
that by it they shall evermore be one and the same. This kiss, she says,
is a seal upon their union whereby she is his and he is hers, one
identity until death:

131

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Ein lip, ein leben daz sin wir.

Nu gat her unde kiisset mich :

Tristan und Isot, ir und ich,

Wir zwei sin iemer beide
Ein ding an' underscheide
Dirre Kus sol ein insigel sin,

Daz ich iuwer unde ir min
Bellben staete unz an den tot,

Nivvan ein Tristan und ein Isot.^

(18348, 18353-18362)

Here the transposition of Christian mystical language is plain
enough. Besides the two-in-one-flesh motif which the Judeo-Christian
tradition applied to a married couple, the Song of Songs and twelfth
century mystical exegesis of the Song are at the very heart of
Gottfried's passage, not only in the coupling of the kiss image with
the theme of "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine," but also
in the motif of love being ns strong as death (8:6). We may recall
that the Song's motif, "My beloved is mine and I am his," was also
linked with the first kiss of Lancelot and Guinevere. Actually, the
psychic union it implies was already present in the first kiss of Tristan
and Iseult, which, we saw, included the idea that love is as strong as
death. It would seem, then, that this parting kiss is a solemn con-
firmation the lovers make of their union unto death. That the kiss is
here accompanied by Iseult's donation of a ring to her lover is an-
other sign of the ritualistic and solemn character of the scene. Here,
at any rate, we have a clear case of the mystico-magical conversion of
lovers into one another by means of the kiss, much like what we have
noticed in the Flamenca. Indeed the situation in the two episodes is
so similar — in both cases the lovers had long since kissed and con-
summated their love many times over — that it is likely that the
Provencal romance derived its analogous kiss scene from the Tristan
legend, most probably, however, from a French source. This raises the
question of how much of the episode in the German poem was

’’ "One body, one life are we. . . . Now come here and kiss me. Tristan and
Iseult, you and I, we two are forever one and undivided substance. May this kiss
be a seal [confirming] that I remain yours and you mine, constant until death, but
one Tristan and one Iseult." Tristan und Isolt: A. Poem by Gottfried von Strass-
hurg, ed. August Closs (Oxford, 1947), p. rSo. Also in Friedrich Ranke's edition
of the poem (Berlin, 1958), p. 230.

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MEDIEVAL LOVE LEGENDS

Gottfried's innovation. Because Gottfried seems to have adhered
closely to the Tristan legend as told before him in French verse by
Thomas, it is safe to say that the important elements of the scene were
already present in Gottfried's predecessor and perhaps were part of
the tradition. Unfortunately, the extant fragment of this scene in
Thomas's version is broken off at a critical point.® Nonetheless, there
is enough to suggest that it might have included the idea of the psycho-
physical value of the lovers' parting kiss, a supposition strengthened
by the fact that the motif of the oneness of the lovers is already very
prominent in Thomas's poem. On the other hand, given the influence
that the Song of Songs was exerting on medieval German poets (as on
poets throughout Europe), and in view of Gottfried's characteristic
practice of applying religious language to his love story (though the
tendency was hardly peculiar to him alone) we may surmise that the
particular mystical coloring lent to the episode is chiefly his own do-
ing.

The twelfth century T ristan of Thomas offers us a significant ex-
ample of the motif of the lady's kiss as a restorative balm bringing
health. It is associated with the theme of the beneficent effect of the
lady's salutation. The Proven(;aI poets, we know, played on the word
la saint in its pluralistic sense of greeting and health and, by a meta-
phorical extension, of salvation or beatitude. The theological concept
of salus has to do with restoring man's fallen or sick nature, with
"healing" man, with at-one-ment. When we recall that the love-sick
poets frequently protest that they can never be restored to health un-
less they receive a kiss from the beloved, we see that the very word
salut — which is given by way of the mouth — could lend itself to a
certain ambiguity which allows a kiss to be thought of. (We should
not forget that the actual greeting or salutation with a kiss was still
practiced.) This ambiguity, I believe, is operative in a passage from
Thomas's Tristan. Near the end of that poem, when Tristan has been
mortally wounded and unsuccessfully treated by doctors, the lover-
knight explains to a trusted friend that only Iseult can console and save
him. In bidding his friend to hasten to Iseult with this news, he plays
upon the word salu in its various meanings and upon the analogous
terms sante and conforz:

Dites li saluz de ma part,

Que nule en moi senz li n'a part.

De cuer tanz saluz li emvei

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Que nule ne remaint od mei.

Mis cuers de salu la salue,

Senz li ne m'ert sante rendue;

Emvei li tute ma salu.

Cumfort ne m'ert jamais rendu,

Salu de vie ne sante,

Se par li ne sunt aporte.

S'ele ma salu ne m'aporte
E par buche ne me conforte,

Ma sante od li dune remaine,

E jo murrai od ma grant peine;

En fin dites que jo sui morz
Se jo par li n'aie conforz.*

The verse "E par buche ne me conforte" not only refers to words
of greeting and comfort brought by the beloved in person (from her
mouth), but is rather a more or less veiled allusion to the kind of
salutary or beatitude-conferring kiss that we found in the Provencal
poets and, for that matter, in the religious tradition. This interpretation
seems all the more plausible in view of the past history of the lovers
and the intricate, somewhat precious playing on the word and con-
cept of salut? Moreover, it is further substantiated by the ending of
Thomas's own poem, in Iseult's lament over the dead Tristan. In this
early version of the legend, Iseult has arrived too late to succour her
lover. As she stands before the corpse of Tristan, her thoughts are
that he has died for love of her, and that if she had reached him in time
she might have healed him with memories of their love and with fresh
kisses and embraces. Failing this they might at least have died to-
gether.^®

One of the most impressive and richly significant parts of the
Tristan legend is that which deals with the death of the lovers. In
truth it is of a piece with the whole, for the presentiment of death ac-
companies the couple from the inception of their love. From the time
of the drinking of the love potion and the first passionate kiss, they

‘ "Give her greetings from me, [tell her] that nothing without her has any part
in me. I send her so much health from my heart that none remains with me. My
heart greets her with greetings [health], without her no well-being will be restored
to me; 1 send her all my health [greetings]. Comfort will never be restored to me,
nor health of life nor well-being, unless they are brought by her. If she does not
bring me health [greetings] and comfort me with her mouth, my well-being then
remains with her, and I shall die of my great hurt; finally tell her that I am dead
unless I have comfort from her." Thomas, Les Fragments du Roman de Tristan,
ed. Bartina H. Wind (Geneva and Paris, 1960), pp. 135-134.

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MEDIEVAL LOVE LEGENDS

sense that they have drunk both love and death. We cannot forget that
the story of this passion is played against the background of a moral
and social order which could only condemn and thwart it. Thus for
all the stolen moments of joy the lovers have had, the union of the
couple could not have its true fulfillment save in death. Here too —
indeed, especially here — the kiss has a major role. In the presence of
her dead lover, Iseult's grief is beyond endurance; literally unable to
live without Tristan, she lies beside him, and while embracing him,
presses her lips to his to join herself with her lover and to die upon that
kiss:

Embrace le, si s'estent,

Baise la buche e la face
E molt estreit a li I'embrace,

Cors a cors, buche a buche estent.

Sun espirit a itant rent,

E murt dejuste lui issi
Pur la dolur de sun ami.'

Pyramns and Thisbe

We will soon have occasion to touch on the fuller erotic signifi-
cance of this death, but for the moment we may say that there is no
doubt that the extraordinary popularity of the Tristan legend lies in
the fact that it is the perfect tale, indeed, an exemplum of a love unto
death. In this respect it is significant that the only other legend of pro-
fane love to vie in popularity with the Lancelot-Guinevere and the
Tristan-Iseult stories was the sorrowful tale of Pyramus and Thisbe

^ "She embraces him, indeed she lies down, kisses his mouth and face and holds
him most lightly in her embrace; body to body, mouth to mouth she puts. She
surrenders her spirit there and dies beside him out of grief for her lover." Les
fragments, p. 162. P. Dronke remembers these verses in connection with a death
scene from a secular Latin poem by Marbod in the second half of the eleventh
century: "Ad sonitum cithare solitus sum me recreare." And Dronke writes: "A
knight, mortally wounded by a spear, is found dead by his beloved, who dies
upon his body in a grief which is almost a climax of sexual passion in the same
moment as it seems to mock that passion's living fulfilment. It would be tempting
to try to catch an echo here of Tristan's death, to see the lines as evoking the
same passionate death as Thomas of Britain's lines. But this is mere speculation:
There was assuredly more than one tragic romance of such a kind current in
France before 1100." Medieval Latin and the Rise of European Love-Lyric, I (Ox-
ford, 1965), 214-216. As we shall soon see, the model that Thomas may have used
for his death-scene was a medieval version of Pyramus and Thisbe or of the
Narcissus myth.

135

THE KISS SACRED AMD PROFANE

which derived from Ovid's Metamorphoses. From the twelfth century
through the Renaissance period this was the most popular of the
legends of love bequeathed by antiquity. “ Here, to be sure, the re-
lationship is not adulterous, and the lovers are adolescents who have
just awakened to love. But again, theirs is a love that is frustrated by
the barriers erected by an unsympathetic, class-minded society. More
important yet is the fact that it is a love which, like that of Tristan and
Iseult, brings the lovers to a common death. Following the story in
the anonymous twelfth century French retelling — Piramus et Thisbe —
we find that the young couple has arranged for a nocturnal tryst; but
when Pyramus discovers Thisbe's bloodied veil, he is led to think that
his beloved has been slain by a wild beast, whereupon he kills him-
self with his sword. Thisbe, when she comes upon the dead Pyramus,
strikes herself with the same sword and falls upon his body. Like Iseult,
Thisbe expires while embracing and kissing her lover. The similarity
between the two is such as to suggest that the author of Tristan had
the French Piramus et Thisbe in mind when he wrote the ending of his
own poem:

Le cors acole et si I'embrace,

Baise les iex, baise la face,

Baise la bouche par grant cure,

Tant com sens et vie li dure.

Tant con li dure sens et vie
Se demoustre veraie amie.’^

(925-930)

As with the Tristan legend, the fascination exercised by this tale
in the Middle Ages derived from its sympathetic rendering of the theme
of a love that leads lovers who are psychically one to one death. When
Thisbe is about to imitate the suicide of Pyramus, she calls on Love
to give her the strength to strike the blow that will comfort her lover's
soul with the thought that they have died one same death. She is her-
self comforted by the idea that though they have been kept apart in
life, they will be united in death :

‘'"She lies by his body and so embraces it; she kisses the eyes, she kisses the
face, she kisses the mouth with great care, as long as her sense and life last. As
long as life and sense last she shows herself his true lover." Piramus et Thishe,
introduzione, testo critico, traduzione e note, ed. F. Branciforti (Florence, 1959), p.
208.

136

MEDIEVAL LOVE LEGENDS

Amours, faites ma main si fort
Qu'a un seul cop reijoive mort;

S'en avra s'ame grant confort,

S'andui morromes d'une mort.

Amis,

Duel et amour vos ont ocis;

Quant assambler ne poons vis,

Mort nos ioindra, ce m'est avis.‘

(880-887)

Thisbe's plea to Love for the strength that will enable her to die
and so be united with her beloved in death brings to mind once again
the theme of the Song (8:6) — love is as strong as death. From this it can
be seen that in the Middle Ages the Pyramus and Thisbe legend was
an exemplum not only of a love unto death but of a love uspue ad
mortem et ultra. The same is to be said of the Tristan legend, especially
as it developed in the prose romances — in French first, then quickly
in Italian — of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In particular,
the representation of the death of Tristan and Iseult underwent an
important modification that we must now consider.

The Kiss and the Love-Death

In the prose romances dealing with the Tristan legend, the most
significant feature of the death scene is the even greater insistence on
the two-in-one motif and the ultimate togetherness of the couple. Now
Iseult is present at her lover's side while he is still alive though near
death; around the death bed are also King Mark and other knights.
Feeling his end approaching, Tristan invites Iseult to die with him, for
it is inconceivable to him that the one should live without the other, so

’ "Love, make my hand so strong that at a single blow I shall have death; his
soul shall have great comfort from it, so we shall both die one death. My lover,
grief and love have killed you; since we cannot be united in life, death will join us,
this is what I think." Firamus et Thisbe, p. 206. The theme of the psychic oneness
of the two lovers is conspicuous in a late twelfth century Latin rifacimento of
Ovid's tale.

Sunt duo, nec duo sunt, quia mens est una duorum,

Una fides, unus spiritus, unus amor. (5-6)

Sunt duo, sunt unum, sic sunt duo corpore, mente
Unum sicque duos unicus unit amor, (g-io)

Quoted in Firamus et Thisbe, p. ig.

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

intimately bound are they to one another, like body and soul. Indeed
they have been one flesh, one heart, and one soul : "Ce serait honte se
Tristans moroit sans Iseult qui avons este une char, un cuer et une
ame. Et puisqu'il est ainsi, ma douce dame, que morir voles avoec moi, il
est mestier que nous muirions amdui ensemble."™ Here we seem to
have a transference of the wish to die with the beloved from Iseult to
Tristan. In one of the fragments from Thomas's poem, it is the queen
who declares the necessity of dying together at a moment when she
feels this "law" is threatened. In that version, of course, Iseult is
hastening to Tristan by sea; imperiled by a storm, she fears she is to
perish far from her lover. If she could not have healed him, they
would have at least died together from one same anguish: "U nus
dous murrir d'une anguisse." That the wish is for an identical and
simultaneous death is made clear by Iseult's thought that if she is to
die by drowning, then Tristan should by the law of their compelling
love somehow come to seek her and drown with her at sea.^^

In the prose version, we have said, it is the dying Tristan who
expresses this sentiment and enjoins it upon the queen. The grieving
Iseult desires nothing better, but she does not know how to effect it.
Here again, that what is understood is one and the same death is made
manifest by the fact that the queen has in any case already determined
to follow Tristan in death by killing herself when he has died. But
now it is as though the writer of the prose romance could not be
satisfied with having Iseult die from grief after Tristan has first expired.
The lovers must not merely follow one another in death, they must
truly die together. The voluptuous thought that the author entertains
is that they might embrace and die a death of luxury.'® With death
now engulfing him, Tristan tells the queen to lie beside him so that he
can die in her arms. When Iseult has laid herself upon him and the
two are locked in an embrace and a mouth-to-mouth kiss, Tristan
squeezes her with all his remaining strength, as in a spasm, so that she
dies at the very moment that he himself expires:

Quant Tristans vit apertement qu'il estoit a la mort venus, il regarde
entour soi et dist: Seigneur, je muire, je ne puis plus vivre; a Dieu soves
tout commande. Quant il ot dite ceste parole, il dist a la royne Iseult:

™ It would be shameful if Tristan were to die without Iseult when we have
been one flesh, one heart and one soul. And since it is true, my dear lady, that
you wish to die with me, it is right that we both should die together.'^ In Paulin
Paris, Les tAanuscrits frangois de la bibliothecjue du roi (Paris, 1836), pp. 206—207.

138

MEDIEVAL LOVE LEGENDS

Amie, or m'accoles, si que je fine entre vos bras. Si, finerai adonc a
aise, ce m'est avis. Iseult s'accline sur Tristan, quant ele entent ceste
parole; ele s'abaisse seur son pis. Tristan la prent entre ses bras, et
quant il la tint seur son pis, il dist si haut que tuit cil de leans
I'entendirent : Des ore ne me chaut quant je muire, puis que je ai ma
dame avoec moy. Lors estraint la royne de tant de force que il li fist le
cuer partir, et il meesmes morut en tel point. Si que bras a bras et
bouche a bouche moururent li dui amant, et demourerent en tele
maniere embracies. Mort sont amdui par amour, sans autre comfort."

There is a coherence in this death of Tristan and Iseult. We have
already suggested that the social and moral order that the lovers move
in could never permit the true fulfillment of their union. It is a most
important feature of the legend that despite the awareness the lovers
have that they are psychically one, their love is not so disembodied as
to permit them to withstand separation or sexual abstinence. On the
contrary, whenever they are forcibly kept apart, Tristan and Iseult
suffer the cruelest torments. The "mystic" quality of their love in-
volves a complete participation of the flesh as well as a conformity of
wills. This mystico-sexual reality informs their real death. In their
supreme embrace and kiss the lovers surrender themselves to death,
but also, it would seem, to one another in an inviolable union. And
because it is love that moves them to die together, the fear of death
gives way to the voluptuousness of death; the dying from one same
anguish is also a dying in a swell of ecstasy. Here then is the true con-
summation of love and death, of a love that leads lovers to one death.
The passage is truly extraordinary. It is, I think, the first great rep-
resentation in the vernacular of the equating of death with the sexual
act and vice versa. In the Middle Ages this love-death has its parallel
only in the religious eroticism of the time; and though, as we shall see
in subsequent chapters. Renaissance authors were to pun endlessly on
death in this sexual sense, the grandeur and the poignancy of the scene

" "When Tristan saw clearly that he was come to death, he looked about him
and said: T die, my lord, I can live no more; may you be commended to God.'
Having spoken these words he said to the Queen Iseult, 'My love, take me now
that I may end in your arms. Thus I shall end comfortably, as I think.' Iseult
leaned over Tristan when she heard these words; she lowered herself onto his
chest. Tristan took her in his arms and when he held her on his chest he said
so loudly that everyone there within heard him: 'From now on I do not care when
I die because I have my lady with me.' Then he pressed the queen with such force
that he made her heart break and he himself died at that moment. Thus em-
braced and mouth to mouth died the two lovers and stayed embraced in that way.
Both died for love with no other solace." P. Paris, Les Manuscrits, p. 208.

139

THE KISS SACRED AND PROEANE

from the prose Tristan were not to be matched in the literature of
profane love until the elegiac sensuality of Torquato Tasso's muse
created the great love-in-death episodes of the Gerusalemme liberata —
that is, at the time of the Counter Reformation, another age in which
love, precisely because it walked in the shadow of death, seemed the
more voluptuous.

Canto V of the Inferno

When all is said and done, medieval literature bequeathed no kiss
more justly famous than the one we read of in the fifth canto of
Dante's Inferno, during the account that Francesca gives of the love
that has led her and her lover Paolo to eternal punishment in the circle
of carnal sinners. Its greatest relevance to our study is in the fact that
that kiss effected and sealed a union of lovers which is to last forever;
but it cannot be amiss to examine also, however briefly, that part of
Francesca's account which leads up to her reference to the kiss, for
the latter comes as the culminating point of her tale. In telling her
story, Francesca speaks of love as an ineluctable passion that has
bound her and Paolo together in such a way that even now in the
afterlife they continue to be united:

Amor, ch'al cor gentil ratio s'apprende,

Prese costui della Bella persona

Che mi fu tolta; e '1 modo ancor m'offende.

Amor, ch'a nullo amato amar perdona.

Mi prese del costui piacer si forte,

Che, come vedi, ancor non m'abbandona.

Amor condusse noi ad una morte.”

(100-106)

Since these lovers are in the Inferno, we know that what Francesca
is talking about must be bad love. And yet not everything she says
about love is to be judged as bad. There is really nothing wrong, for
example, with the characteristics of love as they are stated by her in
the somewhat parenthetical phrases following the word "Amor" the

° "Love, that quickly finds access to the gentle heart, gripped this man [Paolo]
with the beautiful form that was wrenched from me; and the way torments me
yet. Love, that absolves no loved one from loving in return, gripped me so strongly
with his grace [or: with his delight in me], that, as you see, it still has not forsaken
me. Love led us to one same death."

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MEDIEVAL LOVE LEGENDS

first two times she names it. It is not the idea that love kindles quickly
in the gentle or noble heart that can stand condemned; that is really
a restatement of the poet Guinicelli's idea of the connaturality of love
and the cor gentile. And that love constrains one who is loved to love
in return is a thought as Christian as it is courtly.^® It is as though
Francesca had seized upon some perfectly legitimate principles of love
and, by associating them with her story, was seeking to justify her own
sinful passion. Those principles guide one safely, however, only when
the love is spiritual. What is wrong with the love of Francesca and
Paolo is the direction it takes, and this is abundantly indicated in the
words following the interpolated observations we have referred to. If
we leave those observations out for a moment, we see what it is that
really counts: "Amor . . . prese costui della bella persona che mi fu
tolta," and "Amor ... mi prese del costui piacer si forte, che . . .
ancor non m'abbandona." Their love was grounded in the flesh, and
it was also, as w'e know, adulterous. The lovers, after all, are among
those who allowed reason to be overthrown by concupiscence ("che
la ragion sommettono al talento").

Commentators usually speak of this part of Francesca's tale in
connection with the ideals of courtly love that apparently inform the
language of Dante's heroine. It seems, however, that we can do better
— at least for our purpose — by referring to something much more
concrete: the legends of Pyramus and Thisbe and of Tristan and
Iseult. These two couples must surely come to mind, for, as with them,
the case of Paolo and Francesca is not merely another medieval repre-
sentation of the victory of Amor over Raison, but also, and above all, an
exemplum of a love that leads to death. Francesca's line, "Amor con-
dusse noi ad una morte," is the common epitaph of all three couples
and, of course, for all other such pairs (for example, Pyramus and
Thisbe in the guise of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet). Of this Dante
was well aware. For all the importance we will shortly be attributing
to that other illustrious pair — Lancelot and Guinevere — Francesca and
Paolo have their truest ties with Iseult and Tristan and, to some extent,
with Thisbe and Pyramus. In contradistinction to the tale of Lancelot
and Guinevere, both the Pyramus-Thisbe story and the Tristan-Iseult
legend develop the motif of the lovers' one same death and their burial
in one tomb as a sign of union in and beyond death. Dante, however,
takes the theme to its logical Christian conclusion by showing what
the ultimate consequences of such a love really are beyond the tomb.

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

In this way, his handling of the Paolo-Francesca episode proves unique,
relative to the tradition it builds on, by being an exemplum of a love
usque ad mortem et ultra in a literal and eschatological sensed’^

In her words to Dante, Francesca insists upon the fact that she
and Paolo are still united by love. There is — for the reader- — a kind
of irony here, and it lies in the fact that there is so much truth in what
she says. That love could join two lovers in an inseparable union was
just what the power of love was commonly known to be. Dante him-
self had written in the Convivio to that effect: "Amore, secondo la
concordevole sentenza de li savi di lui ragionanti, e secondo quello che
per esperienza continuamente vedemo, e che congiunge e unisce
I'amante con la persona amata."'’ And, as we earlier saw, one of those
"savi," St. Augustine, had said that this unitive function is true of
carnal as well as of spiritual love. In truth, when we read Francesca's
verse, "Amor condusse noi ad una morte," we cannot avoid the accent
there upon the word una, hence upon the idea of the oneness of the
lovers themselves as well as of their fate in meeting death at the same
time, in the same manner, and for the same reason. In this way the
line really intensifies and seals the thought immediately preceding it
in which Francesca said that their (or her) love was so strong (Amor
. . . si forte, etc.) that even now in death and in the afterlife she and
Paolo are united. Readers of Dante's time would very likely have
recognized a biblical echo in her words and in her situation, the same
indeed that we found in a passage from the Tristan legend. In some
sense they would have accepted as true and applied to the case of
these lovers the thought — perhaps the most striking in the entire cor-
pus of amatory literature — that love is as strong as death: "quia fortis
est ut mors dilectio" (Song of Songs 8:6). But Francesca and Paolo be-
ing in the Inferno, where they are eternally damned and relentlessly
punished by a mal perversa, the thought must have evoked a sense of
awful irony and of divine justice at work. And is it not perhaps another
bit of irony that it is Virgil who enumerates the damned carnal lovers
(among them Dido, his own great heroine of passion) and who
answers Dante's request to be allowed to speak to the pair hurtling
through the air together (they are Paolo and Francesca) with the words
"e tu allor li prega/Per quell'amor che i mena; e quei verranno" (77-

^ Love, according to the unanimous opinion of the sages who have discoursed
on it, and according to that which we constantly see in our experience, is that
which joins and unites the lover with the person loved."

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MEDIEVAL LOVE LEGENDS

78).'* The most famous line concerning love to be handed down from
classical antiquity is Virgil's "Omnia vincit amor; et nos cedamus
amori" — Love conquers all things; and so surrender we to love. Both
the Solomonic and the Virgilian phrases were echoed over and over
in medieval literature. Here they meet.

It is true that in a way — though an ironic way — Francesca and
Paolo have in the afterlife what they wanted on earth, that is, union.
But that is no part of a reward. The love that led them to one same
death together also led them together to Hell. St. Augustine, to quote
again from one of Dante's favorite savi on love, offered the following
thought: "Sed vis nosse quale amor sit, vide quo ducat" (In Psalmum
121, i).*" Although it is true that in the word amor spiritual and carnal
love have one name, in Christian thinking the primary aspect of love
is that which is holy; the other is a corruption of a good. Like Augustine
long before him, William of Saint-Thierry expressed this idea clearly
enough: "O Amor, a quo omnis amor cognominatur, etiam carnalis
ac degener" — Oh Love, from whom all love takes its name, even carnal
and ignoble love.^® And in Purgatory (Purgatorio, XVIII, 66) Dante
was to be reminded by Virgil that man was responsible for choosing
between "buoni e rei amori" — between good and wicked loves. The
antithesis caritas-cupiditas was not to be circumvented. Francesca and
Paolo had been united in a bad love, and that they now continue to
cleave to one another is a part of their torment, a constant and eternal
reminder to one another of their guilt. A correspondence is thereby
established between the sin and the punishment, a procedure apparent
throughout most of the Inferno.

Whatever pity Dante the wayfarer may have felt for the lovers,
no more mitigation of punishment is to be read into the togetherness
of Paolo and Francesca than can be read into the fact that Ulysses and
Diomedes are in one flame. Both pairs are punished in Hell for sins
committed together in the earthly life.*® To interpret, as some still do,
the union of the lovers as an alleviation of their punishment or as a
special concession is to convert the terrible and hopeless finality of
Francesca's words ("Amor condusse noi ad una morte") into a
triumphant cry of victory over death: "Where then. Death, is thy
sting?" (I Cor. 15 :55). But to do so is a manifest absurdity, for the sting

s ". . . and do you beg them then, by the love that drives them; and they will
come."

■■ "But if you wish to know what is the nature of love, look at where it leads."

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

of death is not removed for those who, like the "martyrs" of profane
love, are among the damned. That is simply axiomatic in the Inferno,
where the unrepentant are living out through eternity their "second
death." Paolo and Francesca have not found a new life in death; on the
contrary, their old life of disordered love is projected into eternity.
It is no Elysium for lovers they find themselves in, such as was fancied
by Tibullus (I, 3) in the classical age and later on by poets of the
Renaissance; rather they are in something like (but much worse than)
those "fields of mourning" where Aeneas in his underworld journey
beheld the shades of Dido (who had slain herself because of her
desperate love for him) and other lovers who had met an untimely or
violent end. {Aeneid, VI, 440-471.) There too the sufferings of the
lovers have not been removed by death: "curae non ipsa in morte
relinquunt." And in Dante's poem, Paolo and Francesca belong to
Dido's troop — "la schiera ov'e Dido."

Insofar as the pre-Dantean legends of love unto death were in-
tended to have didactic and exemplary value, what they could point
to was the pain and untimely death that unchecked passion might
lead to. But it was all too easy for readers (and authors) to come away
from the story of such ill-fated couples with feelings of pity, con-
siderable indulgence, and even a secret admiration. Moreover, it was
not uncommon in the Middle Ages for the same exemplum to serve
proponents of diametrically opposed points of view. A sentimental
reader might take the love-unto-death legends as illustrations of the
triumph of love over death rather than vice versa. At any rate, there
can be no question of where lay the real sympathy and inspiration of
the fashioners of the great legends of profane love.'° But as a Christian
poet — a poet of rectitude! — Dante really had no choice in the stand he
was to take concerning the tale of the lovers from Rimini. It is as
though Dante were following the words St. Augustine addressed to
his pupil, the would-be poet Licentius, when he laid down the pro-
cedure to be followed in dealing with just such a story as Dante
treated. In the De ordine, once he is satisfied that Licentius' zeal for
poetry has been tempered to the point that the young man declares a
preference for philosophy over poetry, Augustine tells him that poetry
can be efficacious in inculcating moral truths. The poem that the master
encourages his pupil to return to has as its subject nothing less than
the pathetic love story of Pyramus and Thisbe. But in telling the story

144

MEDIEVAL LOVE LEGENDS

of the double suicide, Augustine warns his pupil, you will find in the
very painful emotion that your poem must communicate a fitting oc-
casion to reveal the execrable nature of that infamous passion and the
poison that produced such miserable effects. Then give yourself wholly
to the praise of pure and true love by which souls enriched with learn-
ing and made beautiful with virtue may unite with the intelligence
by means of philosophy, and not only escape from death, but also enjoy
the happiest life."* There was good reason for the saint to want to offset
any possible reading of the Pyramus and Thisbe story as a story of the
triumph of love. Augustine, we recall, once wept over the fate of Dido
{Conf., I, xiii), and the thought occurs to us that Dante the wayfarer
weeping over the fate of Paolo and Francesca was like that Augustine,
but as the author of the Divine Comedy he was this other Augustine's
kind of poet.^^

Without detracting from the guilt of the lovers, we may consider
Francesca and Paolo to be victims of the tradition and the literature
of courtly-chivalric love. The last part of Francesca's account of the
ill-fated love relates that it was the reading of the love story of Lancelot
and Guinevere that undid her and Paolo. The matter of great interest
to us here is that it was but one point in the book — the description of
the kiss — that led them to take the irrevocable step that effected their
illicit union:

Poi mi rivolsi a loro e parla' io,

E cominciai: "Francesca, i tuoi martiri
A lacrimar mi fanno tristo e pio.

Ma dimmi: al tempo de' dolci sospiri,
A che e come concedette amore
Che conosceste i dubbiosi disiri?"

E quella a me : "Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria; e cib sa '1 tuo dottore.

Ma s'a conoscer la prima radice
Del nostro amor tu hai cotanto affetto,
Dirb come colui che piange e dice.

Noi leggiavamo un giorno per diletto
Di Lancialotto come amor lo strinse:
Soli eravamo e sanza alcun sospetto.
Per piu fiate li occhi ci sospinse
Quella lettura, e scolorocci il viso;

145

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Ma solo un punto fu quel che ci vinse.

Quando leggemmo il disiato rise
Esser baciato da cotanto amante.

Quest!, che mai da me non fia diviso.

La bocca mi bacio tutto tremante.

Galeotto fu 11 libro e chi lo scrisse;

Quel giorno piu non leggemmo avante."®

(115-138)

It would be wrong to think that the reading episode was what
caused the couple to fall in love. The seed of passion was planted and
was germinating in the hearts of the lovers before they read the
Lancelot romance. Francesca, it is true, gives this part of their story as
the “prima radice" of their love, but what she in fact refers to is the
precise moment in which she and her lover, having become aware of the
full extent of their desire for one another, betokened the recognition
of their love with what proved to be a fatal kiss. Francesca, it is to
be noted, uses the expression prima radice in replying to Dante's re-
quest that she explain how, "in the time of the sweet sighs" (the phrase,
along with the expression dubbiosi disiri and Francesca's "ricordarsi
del tempo felice" all suggest a period of time in which their love was
in progress), she and Paolo came to know their feelings were mutual.
The question was not why they fell in love. That was already explained
by Francesca in the first part of her story. The reading of the romance
helped to crystallize their feelings as it gradually brought them to
realize and to reveal the reciprocity of their passion by glances and
turning pale. They might yet have resisted had it not been for the
kiss passage: "Ma solo un punto fu quel che ci vinse." It is here that the
love story Francesca and Paolo were reading has its echo in their own

®''Then I turned to them again and spoke. I began: 'Francesca, your sufferings
make me sad and full of pity and cause me to shed tears. But tell me: at the time
of sweet sighs, how and by what circumstance did love bring you to awareness
of your unconfessed desires?' And she [replied] to me: 'There is no greater sorrow
than to remember happiness in a time of wretchedness; and this your teacher
knows. But if you have such a great desire to know the first root of our love, I
shall tell of it as one who speaks while weeping. One day for pleasure we were
reading of Lancelot, and how love bound him; we were alone and unsuspecting
[innocent]. Several times that reading made our eyes meet and drained the color
from our faces; but it was one point alone that undid us. When we read of the
[queen's] longed-for smile [mouth] being kissed by so great a lover, this man here,
who may never be parted from me, all trembling, kissed me on the mouth. A
Galehaut was that book and he who wrote it; we read no further in it that day.' "

146

MEDIEVAL LOVE LEGENDS

love story; the kiss in the fiction serves as a model for their own kiss.
In the French romance, Galehaut (Galeotto) was the intermediary who
eloquently pleaded Lancelot's case and incited Queen Guinevere to
yield a kiss to the knight. For Paolo and Francesca, who had no such
intermediary, the book had the same function of inciting to an unlaw-
ful sexual passion; but it was the passage on the kiss that had the
specific effect of breaking down all remaining reserve in the lovers,
whose surrender to love is marked by their own first kiss. Here is the
important link with the Lancelot-Guinevere kiss — the breaking down
of reserve by a Galehaut: "Galeotto fu il libro e chi lo scrisse." Needless
to say, the accusation leveled by Francesca at the book is also a damn-
ing judgment by Dante on the kind of love inspired by it."®

The kiss of Francesca and Paolo is the prima radice of their love
in the sense that it was the beginning of their active life in love to-
gether. It corresponds to what Galehaut in the prose Lancelot said
Guinevere's first kiss should be: the "commencement d'amor veraie."
But it is significant that though the kiss marked the "beginning" (in
an active sense) of the pair's illicit love, it is the last thing we hear
of from Francesca. And we note that it is just here in connection with it
that she reintroduces the motif of her inseparable union with Paolo:
"Questi, che mai da me non fia diviso,/La bocca mi bacio." We are
brought back to the first part of Francesca's story, which came to a
conclusion with the statements "ancor non m'abbandona" and "Amor
condusse noi ad una morte." By leaving the rest of the love story un-
told, Dante allows the kiss to acquire extraordinary relief and sym-
bolical — better, exemplary — significance. The reader is almost under
the impression that the lovers were joined in their fatal union of love
and death by that kiss. And in a way this is true. But the effect indeed
is so strong that it has been possible for some readers to hold that the
lovers did in fact come to their end (murdered together by Francesca's
husband) at the moment of the kiss, an opinion shared by the il-
lustrious Dante scholar Bruno Nardi."‘ This, I think, is an unlikely
supposition. We need not stop to debate the question save to recall
the warnings of medieval moralists that when a woman allows her-
self to be kissed, the matter of the sorplus can be taken for granted
(see above p. 103). What is true, however, is that for Francesca and
Paolo the kiss is sentimentally and psychologically connected with
both the prima radice of their love and the una morte to which it

147

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

ultimately led them. As Francesca refers to the kiss in a narration that
telescopes the events of her story into its essentials, that kiss is as-
sociated in her mind, as in a cause-and-effect relationship, with the
death of herself and her lover and with their present but also their
eternal union in Hell.

This way of understanding the episode is apparently the under-
lying inspiration for what is certainly the most remarkable artistic
representation ever designed to illustrate the Inferno V episode. In
William Blake's engraving, as Dante lies prostrate following his swoon
from pity, Paolo and Francesca are sucked up by a whirlwind-like
flame that will carry them again into the never-ending blast that hurls
the numberless carnal sinners (some of them paired and even kissing)
through the air in a vortical movement. With marvelous insight Blake
has included a self-contained vision of the couple's fatal kiss within a
disk of refulgent light in the background above Virgil's head. The
lines that radiate outward from the edge of the disk continue into and
merge with the infernal scene. (See Figure 14.)

Here then we may surmise that even in the kiss motif, it is not
only the kiss of Lancelot and Guinevere that was in Dante's mind when
he wrote his unforgettable episode, but also the kisses exchanged be-
tween Tristan and Iseult — their first kiss of love and their kiss at
parting, at which time the principle of their union in-one-flesh-and-
one-spirit was solemnly declared. This matter is sufficiently important
to our discussion to merit further analysis.

Inferno V and the Tristan Legend

The connection between Dante's Paolo and Francesca episode
and the Tristan legend is made by the poet himself. Before Dante
singled out the lovers from Rimini as the shades with whom he would
speak, Virgil had enumerated a large quantity of the tormented spirits
who were being punished for their passionate love. But of these only
seven are specifically identified for the reader. Significantly, the last
name that we hear before the encounter with Francesca and Paolo is
that of Tristan. While it is true that Iseult is not named by the poet,
it is doubtful that any reader of Dante's time — as of our own time —
could read the name Tristan without mentally coupling it with that
of Iseult:

148

MEDIEVAL LOVE LEGENDS

"Vedi Paris, Tristano;" e piu di mille
Ombre mostrommi, e nominommi, a dito
Ch'amor di nostra vita dipartille.*

(67-69)

Thus the reader comes to the story of Francesca and Paolo with Tristan
(and Iseult) fresh in mind and also with the idea that the spirits Dante
beholds are all of persons who died (violently) for or because of love
("ch'amor di nostra vita dipartille"). This latter thought, in fact, is
accentuated by a reference to Virgil's heroine. Dido, in what comes
close to being an exception to my idea that Tristan is the last specified
shade we hear of before Francesca and Paolo appear. However, Dido
was first identified by means of a periphrasis as the second of the
seven shades singled out by Virgil: "colei che s'ancise amorosa, e ruppe
fede al cener di Sicheo" (61-62).'' Now her name itself figures in a
periphrasis when Dante says that Paolo and Francesca separate them-
selves from the flock where Dido is — della schiera ov'e Dido (85) — so
as to approach him. But Dido is not meant to be individuated here;
rather, in her character of one who died because of a desperate and
irrational passion, her name is used to define the species to which
Dante's couple belongs.

On the other hand, Paolo and Francesca seem to be unique in
this already select group in that they are together as a couple in Hell,
evidently because on earth they were united by love both in life and
in death. Now there is nothing in the canto that authorizes us to think
that other carnal lovers are paired in the afterlife, although it cannot
be absolutely stated that it is not so. Dante seems to have been at-
tracted by the couple because they were together and therebv distin-
guished from the other shades, for, as the story is told, he did not yet
know their identity. But the point here is that before Dante presented
his "modern" couple to the world, Tristan and Iseult and Pyramus and
Thisbe offered the best-known cases of a love that led a couple to a
single death. Precisely because Dante knew this, it is of the utmost
significance that he does not name Iseult and makes no mention of
Ovid's unlucky adolescent lovers in the canto. The absence from Hell

‘ " 'See Paris, Tristan;' and he showed me more than a thousand shades, pointing
as he named them whom love had torn from our life."

" "She who had killed herself for love, and broke faith with the ashes of
Sycheus."

149

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

(in the sense that they are not specified, for they may well be there)
of the latter couple is the more suggestive when we note that Dante
twice in other parts of his poem alludes to them and their death.^^ That
he avoided reference to them in Inferno V as a matter of taste and
delicate reserve in view of their tender age is, I think, quite possible,
though not the sole reason. But what of Iseult? That Dante placed
Tristan's name last in the series of shades named, breaking off the
enumeration just there, is due to more than considerations of chro-
nology and meter. Had he placed it anywhere else, he almost would
have had to name Iseult. It is as though the poet deliberately withheld
her name so as to avoid the necessity of openly declaring either her
separateness from or her togetherness with Tristan in Hell. Certainly
he could not have sundered them in the minds of his readers.

But for Tristan and Iseult to have been conspicuously present as
a pair would have made it difficult if not impossible for Dante to bypass
that most illustrious of medieval couples for his lesser-known (at that
time) lovers from Rimini. The same would hold true if Pyramus and
Thisbe were specified. And, of course, the poet would also have lost
his unique opportunity to make his trenchant two-pronged attack on
romantic love and romantic literature. If, in the circle of passionate
lovers, Dante had not had the unhappy pair from Rimini at hand, he
would, I think, have found that Tristan and Iseult were indeed there
as one, and he would then have chosen to speak and listen to them. As
it is, he has given us something of a modernized retelling of their
story. It may be observed that Paolo and Francesca are the only
"modern" characters Dante notes in the circle of carnal lovers. As for
Tristan, the poet very likely thought of him as belonging to a past so
remote that he could be considered to be among the ancient ladies and
knights that Virgil has pointed out to Dante:

Poscia ch'io ebbi il mio dottore udito

Nomar le donne antiche e' cavalieri.''

It is then that Dante asks to speak with the couple who turn out to be
the lovers from Rimini. Simply to have retold the story of Tristan and
Iseult or of Pyramus and Thisbe would have been little to Dante's
liking and contrary to his genius. Dante frequently was consciously
vying with poets and legends that preceded him, but in doing so, he
was also building on them.

"After I had heard my teacher tell the names of the ladies and knights of old."

150

MEDIEVAL LOVE LEGENDS

Even the situation in which the fall of Paolo and Francesca takes
place has its closest parallel with the circumstances attending the
surrender to love of Tristan and Iseult. In 1920 Pio Rajna noted the
similarity, pointing out that in both cases the couples are alone and in
close contact.^® Tristan and Iseult aboard ship play at chess; Francesca
and Paolo read a book. The reading of the book also corresponds to
the famous love-potion, the one and the other causing a precipitation
of love passion if not the origin of the passion itself. Dante's "soli
eravamo e sanza sospetto" — (we were alone and unsuspecting) echoes
the prose romance, which says of the lovers: "H n'i a nul destourbe-
ment, car il sont ensemble seul a seul qu'il n'ont garde de sorvenue,"'^
although this last detail follows the mutual confession of love the
lovers make. Still another echo is heard in Francesca's statement that
"per piu fiate gli occhi ci sospinse/Quella lettura e scolorocci il viso,"^
which recalls the French author's observation, "Yseus regarde Tristan
et Tristans li, et tant s'entresgardent. . . Considering this to be the
extent of the parallel, Rajna somewhat abruptly and, I think, wrongly
judged as fortuitous the connection between Dante's request to learn
how the lovers from Rimini were made aware of their feelings and the
detail of the French romance that says of the lovers (continuing the
last-quoted, broken phrase): "et tant s'entresgardent en tel maniere,
que li uns conoist bien la volonte de I'autre et la pensee."^ On the
contrary, this seems to me one of the strongest points of contact be-
tween the two episodes.

Rajna's position was determined by the idea that whereas Tristan
and Iseult fall in love suddenly, Francesca and Paolo evidently have
been harboring a passion for one another for a while before their read-
ing. Because of this, Rajna finds the connection with the Lancelot
romance to be the truly important link, for Lancelot, he observes, was
in love with Guinevere from his first sight of her, and the queen was
early attracted by the knight, so that, as in the case of Dante's lovers,
desire came well in advance of the pledging of their love. However,
Rajna perhaps interpreted too literally the role of the love-potion in

"There was nothing to disturb them for they were alone together, so that they
had no thought of what happened."

* "Several times that reading made our eyes meet and drained the color from
our faces."

^ "Iseult looks at Tristan and Tristan at her, and they look at each other for so
long . . ."

^ ". . . and they look at each other for so long and in such a way that each is
perfectly aware of the other's will [desire] and thought."

151

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

the Tristan legend, claiming that love comes suddenly and inexplicably
upon its being drunk, and that without it there is no justification for the
passion that consumes the lovers. But even allowing this to be so, the
fact is that the French author did take the trouble to show Tristan and
Iseult after their drink becoming aware of the mutual nature of their
desire for one another, an awareness that they are brought to by their
looking at one another: "et tant s'entresgardent en tel maniere, que li
uns conoist bien la volonte de I'autre et la pensee. Tristans aperqoit et
conoist que Yseus I'aime de tout son cuer, et Yseus reconoist bien que
Tristans I'aime autresint."® Moreover, we do not know in what version,
or versions, Dante knew the Tristan legend. Gottfried's poem has
many details that the Italian poet could have known of from other
sources. Now Gottfried gives a circumstantial account of the thoughts
and reaction of Tristan and Iseult between the time of the drinking
of the love-potion and the mutual confession of their passion which
leads directly to their kiss. A point of particular interest to us here is
that Gottfried's account tells us that the lovers exchange furtive glances
with one another and that when their eyes meet they change color,
either blushing or turning pale. This, says the poet, is because Love
was not content to be hidden in the lovers' hearts, but was determined
to be revealed on their faces!"’ The similarity to the situation of Dante's
lovers is certainly striking:

Noi leggiavamo un giorno per diletto

Per piu fiate li occhi ci sospinse
Quella lettura, e scolorocci il vise.*'

Certain passages of the Lancelot romance cause Paolo and Francesca
to raise their eyes from the book and to look at each other, a gesture
which is accompanied by their turning pale — perhaps causes them to
turn pale. As they read of the passion of Lancelot and Guinevere in
the book, so they read of their own passion in one another's eyes and
in the changed hue of their faces. In this way the lovers are made
fully aware of their mutual desire. All it takes for Dante to drive home
the full force of this idea is the pause at the end of the verse and the

® ". . . and they look at each other for so long and in such a way that each is
perfectly aware of the other's will [desire] and thought. Tristan perceives and
knows that Iseult loves him with all her heart, and Iseult recognizes that Tristan
loves her in the same way."

"One day for pleasure we were reading . . . Several times that reading made
our eyes meet and drained the color from our faces."

152

MEDIEVAL LOVE LEGENDS

line that follows in which the initial adversative, Ma, acquires great
dramatic and explicative value: "Ma solo un punto fu quel che ci
vinse."°

We recall that in the Tristan legend the lovers came together in a
kiss as the first natural expression of their love just after they
recognized that their desire was mutual. This is also what happens in
the episode of Paolo and Francesca. Another important element here
is that in Dante's episode it is Paolo who kisses Francesca first. Much
has been written in an effort to explain why Dante departed from the
Lancelot romance (assuming he was following it) when he chose to
have the male (Paolo) offer the kiss. In fact, he has Francesca depart
from the French romance even in the idea that it was Lancelot who
took the initiative in the kiss. May it not be that Dante had the Tristan
legend in mind here too and that he merged the figures of Lancelot
and Tristan? In that legend it is Tristan who kisses first. One thing
is sure; for Dante to have made Francesca take the lead in the act of
the kiss would have been so out of keeping with her character as to
constitute a major artistic and psychological flaw. As a heroine of
romantic love, Francesca has little in common with the blithe figure
of Queen Guinevere, whether we think of the latter as receiving or
giving the kiss. Of course, Francesca cannot be thought of as an
excessively demure maid; she receives but also responds to the kiss.
It is plain from her story that she was not really caught by surprise
when Paolo kissed her, and one has the impression that Paolo could
easily have been repulsed, but that that was far from her mind. But
in respect to these points Francesca is closer to Iseult (when the latter
was first kissed by Tristan with a lover's kiss) than to Guinevere.

Among the other important points of similarity between Dante's
episode and the Tristan legend we may note that Paolo and Francesca
are slain by the latter's jealous husband. In the prose Tristan, the hero
receives his fatal wound from Iseult's jealous husband. There is also
an element of incest in both cases. Paolo is the brother of Francesca's
husband; Tristan is the nephew of Iseult's husband. Although the
Lancelot-Guinevere affair is adulterous, there is no incest involved.
Finally, there is the connection between the kiss and the idea of death
as its consequence. There is nothing of this in the Lancelot romance,
whereas both the Tristan legend and Dante's episode establish a psy-
chological relationship between the fall or the kiss of the lovers and

"But it was one point alone that undid us."

153

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

their psychic union unto and even beyond death. How far removed
Lancelot and Guinevere are from all this is quickly seen when we re-
member that in the Lancelot legend, Guinevere died penitent in a
convent, and that Dante was of the opinion that Lancelot himself, like
Guido da Montefeltro, spent his last years in seclusion, leading an
austere religious life {Convivio, IV, 28).

At this point, in support of my idea of the exemplary and em-
blematic character of the kiss in Inferno V, medieval Christian iconog-
raphy may once again stand us in good stead. In the High Middle
Ages, the vice of luxury or lust was commonly represented by a couple
embracing and kissing. This type is found in the Luxuria reliefs of the
cathedrals at Chartres and Amiens, that of the latter dating from
circa 1225. (See Fig. 16.) In this depiction of lust — as in certain
miniatures illustrating the kiss of the Song — it is the man who is
shown taking the initiative or the more active role; he is often seen
with one hand holding or caressing the face or neck of the woman.^®
The kiss of Paolo and Francesca was just such a one, and, as we know,
its end result was to plunge the couple into the infernal circle of the
lustful. It may be that also in representing Lancelot as the active
partner in the knight's kiss with Guinevere, Dante, speaking through
Francesca, was, consciously or unconsciously, following and con-
tributing to this emblematic tradition. Unlike the lovers from Rimini,
however, the Arthurian couple had time to repent.^®

Purgatory and the Kiss of Peace

It often happens in the Divine Comedy that an episode in the
Inferno receives its deeper meaning and fuller symbolic value from
another episode later in the poem (in Purgatory or Paradise) which
has some point of resemblance to it. This is the case with the kiss
passage we have just examined. In addition to the sensual and sinful
kiss of Francesca and Paolo, there is in the Divine Comedy an example
of the Christian holy kiss of peace and love. Significantly, the latter
occurs in that ledge of Purgatory where the souls are cleansing them-
selves of the sin of lust in a purifying fire. As Dante moves along the
rim of that ledge, he sees two groups of shades approaching one an-
other from opposite directions. When these souls meet, they kiss one
another and quickly continue on their way:

154

MEDIEVAL LOVE LEGENDS

Li veggio d'ogne parte farsi presta
Ciascun'ombra e baciarsi una con una
Senza restar, contente a brieve festa.‘'

(Purgatorio, XXVI, 31-53)

Now Purgatory is an area where Dante frequently insists upon
the theme of concord and union, and the salutation by the holy kiss of
peace or charity, we know, is a sign of the spiritual union and recon-
ciliation of the faithful. The kiss (i.e., charity) is concordia. This then
is an indication of the appropriateness of its presence in this part of
the poem, where the greeting these souls give one another is called by
Dante an "accoglienza arnica." Moreover, there is something eminently
fitting in the fact that this holy kiss should be given by those who, al-
though now among the saved, had been guilty on earth of unchaste
kisses. Here, we cannot help thinking, is where Francesca and Paolo
would be had they managed to be repentant before their untimely
death. Dante has clearly wished to establish a deliberate contrast with
the kiss of lust described by Francesca in the circle of the doomed
carnal lovers of the Inferno.

There are other elements that help us to see the contrast. One of
the surest signs of Francesca's torment is her insistence on the idea
of peace. She who is condemned to being hurtled eternally through
the air by the infernal blast speaks of peace — pace — as a condition she
evidently desires but can never have (Inferno, V, 91-99). The kiss is
the Christian symbol of peace par excellence, but the kiss Francesca
exchanged with Paolo brought just the opposite of peace. In Pnrgatorio
XXVI Dante addresses the penitents as souls who are sure to come to
the blessed state of peace: "O anime sicure / D'aver, quando che sia,
di pace stato" (53-54). In the midst of their present but temporal
chastisement, the periodic kiss of peace that they exchange presages
the eternal peace which will one day be theirs.

There is significant symmetry here as well. The first kiss occurs
(or rather is recalled) at the beginning of what may be named Hell
proper, for though Limbus is in the first circle of the descent, it is
clearly felt to be set off from the rest of the Inferno, even more so
than are the sluggards found in the vestibule of Hell. Then at the last
ledge of Purgatory in which penalty is assessed occurs the second kiss.

"There from both directions 1 see each shade hurry to kiss one another, with-
out pausing, content with brief but joyous greeting."

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

At the beginning and at the end of Dante's punitive and purgative
system a kiss helps to illustrate the nature of the opposite poles of
cupiditas and caritas, of disordered love and love being set in order.
As in so many other things, so too in the matter of the kiss, Dante
presents us with a summing-up, and, as it were, the definitive medieval
word.

More light is thrown on the kisses of Guinevere and of Francesca
when Dante meets with Beatrice in the earthly paradise. What happens
there and certain verbal echoes make it clear that Beatrice is contrasted
with Francesca (and Guinevere) and that Dante's love for Beatrice is
contrasted with that of Paolo and Francesca. When Beatrice appears,
her face is veiled. Her handmaidens — the theological virtues — beg
her to unveil so that her devotee, Dante, may see not only her eyes but
that second and greater beauty which is Beatrice's mouth:

Per grazia fa noi grazia che disvele

A lui la bocca tua, si che discerna

La seconda bellezza che tu cele.®

(Piirgatorio, XXXI, 136-138)

We recall that in the Vita Nuova Dante says that the eyes are the
beginning but the mouth is the end of love (see note 9 of this chapter).
In the Convivio Dante says that the smile is a sign of beatitude, and
here in the earthly paradise it is Beatrice's celestial and smiling mouth,
"lo santo riso" (XXXII, 5), that causes Dante to be rapt so intensely
that he has to be called back to his senses and surroundings by the
three handmaidens (XXXI, 139-145, and XXXII, i-iz). Certainly this
spiritual splendor of Beatrice's mouth {bocca and santo riso) is to
be contrasted with the seductive but uninnocent passion connected
with the mouths of Guinevere {il disiato riso) and Francesca {la bocca
mi bacib). Beatrice's smiling mouth is no less desired by Dante than
were Guinevere's by Lancelot and Francesca's by Paolo. But whereas
the latter two cases involved ecstatic but illicit kisses by trembling
lovers, Dante is ecstasied by contemplation of his lady's mouth. And
yet, if not in Florence when Beatrice was a mortal, here in the earthly
paradise where we have the transfiguration of Beatrice's mouth, is it
possible that in his rapture the poet did not intone — like the mystics,
among them Saint Bernard, who was to be Dante's last "guide" in the

® "For the sake of grace grant us the favor of unveiling your mouth to him so
that he may perceive the second beauty that you conceal."

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MEDIEVAL LOVE LEGENDS

celestial paradise — the first verse of the Song of Songs : "Osculetur me
osculo oris sui"? Given the various possible allegorical meanings that
attach to Beatrice in the Divine Comedy (i.e.. Wisdom, Revelation,
Theology, the Church), one is tempted to think that he did so —
tremblingly.®®

157

5 . The 'Renaissance
J^eoplatonic Thase

5 in the Middle Ages, so too in the Renaissance — both
Christian and paganizing — the conceits we have been
tracing, although frequently found together in a unit, most
often appear separately. For the most part. Renaissance
writers (especially the poets) thought of these conceits as being
Neoplatonic in origin and significance, but they could not have been
unaware of their place in the Christian tradition. The locus classicus
for the concept of the migration and exchange of lovers' souls, or of the
transformation of the lover into the beloved, along with the important
theme of the death and resuscitation of lovers, as these ideas were
employed in amatory literature during the Renaissance, is a section
from Marsilio Ficino's Commentary on Plato's Symposium. Although
Ficino makes no overt osculatory allusions, a close examination may
yet reveal that the soul-in-the-kiss conceit was not altogether re-
moved from his thoughts when he composed the passage in question.
But even if this proves not to be so, the passage is of paramount in-
terest to us here. Its influence was enormous, and what cannot be
doubted is the fact that many subsequent writers — the poets in par-
ticular — did not shrink from coupling its amatory concepts psycholog-
ical and philosophical with the theme of the kiss.

Marsilio Ficino and the Lover's Death and Revival

In exhorting his listeners to love, Ficino urges them not to be dis-
mayed at the idea, said to be Plato's, that the lover dies unto himself
and lives in another person: "Neque vos illud deterreat, quod de
amante quodam Platonem dixisse ferunt. Ille, inquit, amator animus
est proprio in corpore mortuus, in alieno corpore vivens."® The source
Ficino had in mind when he attributed this thought to Plato has not,

® "Nor should you be deterred by the saying attributed to Plato concerning a
certain lover. 'This lover,' he said, 'is a soul dead to his own body and living in
another's.' " Convivium Platonis sive de amore: Oratio secunda, caput VIII; in the
edition accompanied by a French translation by Raymond Marcel, Commentaire
sur le Banquet de Platon (Paris, 1956), p. 155. All quotations from Ficino's Com-
mentary are from this edition.

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THE RENAISSANCE NEOPLATONIC PHASE

as far as I know, been correctly determined. In his critical edition of
Ficino's Latin text, accompanied by a French translation, Raymond
Marcel refers the reader to Plato's Phaedrus, 248c; but nothing is to
be found there or anywhere else in Plato that corresponds to the
passage in question. Touching briefly on the Ficinian allusion, Jean
Orcibal suggests that the Italian thinker probably ascribed to Plato
a thought that derives from Cato by way of Plutarch's Lives. ^ But, as
recorded there, Cato states simply that the lover's soul lives in the body
of another. Although this comes close, there is still no talk of the lover
being dead unto himself. I find that Plutarch repeats the reference in
his own wonderful Dialogue on Love, and in a context where he is
apparently following the Platonic discussion from Phaedrus (252-
253) on the connaturality of lovers. Unfortunately, Plutarch's pas-
sage is corrupt, there being an obvious lacuna directly after the refer-
ence to Cato's saying: "Roman Cato declared that the soul of the lover
is ever present in that of the beloved . . . form, character, way of life,
and every act."" Again the reference is suggestive. But again there is
no mention of death. Moreover, in both cases the ascription to Cato
is firm, and there is no hint of Plato being behind it. Ficino, on the
other hand, introduces his thought as an opinion attributed to Plato
by others. (In his own Italian version of his Commentary, Ficino him-
self was to present the idea simply as Plato's.) This becomes a signif-
icant detail if we can find the thought so ascribed to Plato, as indeed
we can. And here we are brought back to the Platonic epigram on kiss-
ing Agathon:

My soul was on my lips as I was kissing Agathon.

Poor soul! she came hoping to cross over to him.

Ficino, of course, knew the distich, for, if in no other place, he
read it in Diogenes Laertius, where it is given as the philosopher's.®
Yet it is doubtful that there is enough in the epigram to have led Ficino
to attribute to Plato the thought of the lover's death and subsequent
revival in the beloved. There is, I think, a more likely source that was
also known to him, one which, while it does in fact ascribe the idea
to Plato, spells out the theme of the dying and resuscitation of the
lover. This is an expanded Latin version of the original epigram found
in Aulus Gellius, an author frequently cited in Ficino's works :

Cum semihiulco savio
Meo puellum savior
Dulcemque florem spiritus

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Duco ex aperto tramite,

Anima male aegra et saucia
Cucurrit ad labeas mihi,

Rictumque in oris pervium
Et labra pueri mollia,

Rimata itineri transitus,

Ut transiliret, nititur.

Turn si morae quid plusculae
Fuisset in coetu osculi,

Amoris igni percita
Transisset et me linqueret
Et mira prorsum res foret,

Ut fierem ad me mortuus.

Ad puerum ut intus viverem.’’

The close parallel between the last two verses and Ficino's words,
coupled with the fact that Aulus Gellius first gives the original Greek
distich as Plato's, suggests to me that this Latin version had some part
in leading Ficino to refer to Plato as the author of the idea that the lover
dies unto himself but revives in the beloved. If, as I think, this is so,
then it is significant that the Italian philosopher makes no mention
of the kiss, and it becomes both necessary and worthwhile to ask why.
In order to answer the question, however, we must first examine the
rest of Ficino's passage, which has its own inherent relevance to the
present study.

Had the few words we have quoted from Ficino been all he wrote
on the subject of the lover's death and revival, the idea might not have
attracted undue notice in readers and followers. But in fact they serve
to introduce a long disquisition on the mystico-magical phenomenology
of reciprocal love between true friends, and what Ficino went on to
write is one of the most incandescent passages in the literature of
Platonic love, perhaps one of the most remarkable pages in the annals
of amatory literature.

When with half-open mouth I kiss my young friend and draw the sweet
flower of his breath from the opened path, my soul, sick and wounded, rushes to
my lips, and seeking passage for its journey through the opening of my friend's
mouth and soft lips, it exerts itself to spring across. Then if there were a little
longer pause in the union of our kiss, [my soul] urged by love's fire, would cross
over and leave me. And it would be altogether wonderful if I became dead to
myself and lived within my young friend." The Attic Nights, III, ed. and trans.
John C. Rolfe (London and New York, 1928), 392. (Bk. XIX, xi.) These same verses
are recorded with slight variation in the Saturnalia (II, ii) by Macrobius, who evi-
dently got them from Aulus Gellius.

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THE RENAISSANCE NEOPLATONIC PHASE

Ticino and Reciprocal Love

Love, Ficino tells his readers, may be simple or reciprocal. In
simple love the beloved does not return the affection of the lover, so
that the lover may be said to be dead, for, his thoughts and soul hav-
ing gone out toward the beloved, he does not live in himself, and
inasmuch as the unresponsive beloved does not welcome and give a
place to the lover's soul, the latter has no dwelling place. Hence the
lover is totally dead and without hope of revival unless he be re-
suscitated by indignation, by which Ficino evidently means that the
unrequited lover remains dead as long as he continues to be enamored.'*
In reciprocal love, on the other hand, each partner is both lover and
beloved and each lives in the other. That is, the lover's death is com-
pensated by an immediate resuscitation of life; the lover who dies
unto himself lives in the beloved and is himself sustained by the soul
of the beloved that has come to him. By means of this mutual trans-
formation, the two lovers become one and each becomes two. Such
then is that "fortunate death" by which one is resuscitated and acquires
a new and double life. This, says Ficino, is love's greatest miracle, for
by it there takes place that exchange of lovers' souls resulting in the
experience which is the primary aim of lovers — transformation into
the beloved.®

It is apparent that here we are beyond anything that could have
come from the Platonic epigram or from Aulus Gellius's amplification
of it. In his glowing purple passage, the Italian philosopher is speak-
ing of love as an ecstasy in a manner that makes us think at once of
both the medieval poet and the Christian mystic. Basic to all three is
the idea that love is an ecstatic force that seeks to unite lover and
beloved (or two lovers) by causing an exodus of the deeper self that
moves toward its desire. But if Ficino's speculation on the ecstatic na-
ture of love owes something, perhaps much, to the poets, he is ulti-
mately drawing even more, it seems to me, on the tradition of Christian
spirituality and mysticism. Especially revealing in this respect is the
elaboration of the theme of death and resurrection, the lover dying un-
to himself but finding new life in the beloved, or living with the life
of the beloved. Although he certainly met with such an idea in the
poets, Ficino was sure to have been familiar with it in the religious
tradition, where it is even more conspicuous. The greatest aspiration

161

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

of the Christian is to die unto himself so as to live in the beloved
(Christ) or, what comes to the same thing, to be infused with the
beloved's life (or spirit). The most rapturously mystic utterance in
Christian literature is St. Paul's cry: "With Christ I am nailed to the
Cross. It is now no longer I that live but Christ that lives in me"
(Gal. 2:19-20). Endlessly commented upon by the religious writers
Ficino knew so well, that exalted cry must have been in his mind
when he was writing his own rhapsodic passage. So too, perhaps, were
the following words of an author whose works Ficino and other
Italian Neoplatonists meditated deeply, the Pseudo-Dionysius, who
considered Paul a lover precisely because of his eagerness to die so
that he could be possessed with the life of Christ:

And the Divine Yearning brings ecstasy, not allowing them that are
touched thereby to belong unto themselves but only to the objects of
their affection. . . . Hence the great Paul, constrained by the Divine
Yearning, and having received a share in its ecstatic power, says with
inspired utterance, "I live, and yet not I but Christ liveth in me:" true
sweetheart that he was and (as he says himself) being beside himself
unto God, and not possessing his own life but possessing and loving
the life of Him for Whom he yearned.®

Now it is possible to see a connection between this and Ficino's
passage. Indeed Ficino, who translated and wrote a close commentary
on Dionysius, noted precisely in connection with these words that
love transports the lover into the beloved: "Wherefore love is said
to cause an ecstasy in the lover, that is, a sort of excess by which he
is carried, as it were, into the beloved."'^ Equally significant is the fact
that in the Commentary on the Symposium itself, shortly after his
ecstatic description of reciprocal love, Ficino appealed to Dionysius'
idea that love constrains superior things to move toward lower things
and vice versa, an idea which comes just before the words we have
quoted from the "Areopagite."® Hence it is difficult for me to accept
without some qualification the view of Kristeller (adopted by others
on his authority) that in Ficino "the whole technical language of love
which exchanges the Souls of the lovers and transforms them into
each other are evidently taken from poetry and developed into a more
precise system."® For the passage we are considering — it is the most
eloquent and far-reaching statement on the question to be found in
Ficino — equally important sources are the writings of Christian
authors. For the latter, we know, love not only wounds but, because it

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THE RENAISSANCE NEOPLATONIC PHASE

is as strong as death, kills outright; but in this kind of death, when one
dies his life is hidden in the beloved. The following quotation from
Gilbert of Hoy illustrates this idea by yoking together two key biblical
texts :

Fortunate is he in whom sacred love is a sickness, yet not a suffering
. . . O unhealthy, indeed, truly sick heart that does not know it is
stricken by this wound! "I am wounded," she says," by love (charity)."
Not only does it wound but it kills also; "for love is as strong as
death." Finally the Apostle [says] : "You are dead, and your life is
hidden with Christ in God."*®

And later, in the fifteenth century, Jean Gerson recorded the case of
a martyr for love, a devout soul who died unto herself and found life
in the beloved:

I am made blessed through my faith — for so I may piously believe—
a blessed martyr of love; who could sing no less than this: "I am
sick with love, I am love's captive, I love for love's sake, I am wounded
by charity, I am even dead from love, dead to myself but alive to my
beloved [vidnerata caritate ego sum, sed et amove mortua, mortua
michi et amato viva] !"**

Such passages as these are not meant to be taken as direct sources
of Ficino, but rather as examples of the kind of imagery and language
which was common to the tradition of Christian spirituality with which
the Italian philosopher was familiar. Needless to say, that language
was still common in the Christian writers of Ficino's time, and as we
shall see, he himself was to employ it in a reasonably orthodox fashion
in contexts describing the relationship between God and the soul.
Meanwhile, where Ficino would appear to be closer to the poets in this
matter is in the fact that the passage from his Commentary is a de-
scription of love, not between God and the soul, but between two
creatures. Unlike the poets, however, he speaks of a love that is not
a heterosexual relationship but rather one between two males, the
one a mature man, the other a youth. It is, in fact, intellectual love, or,
we may say, spiritual friendship. And now we can understand w'hy
the Italian philosopher perhaps deliberately refrained from mentioning
the kiss, despite the fact that in wishing to attribute to Plato the
ecstatic concept of love as effecting an exchange of souls entailing the
death and resuscitation of lovers, he was drawing from a source (or so
I believe) in which the kiss as the vehicle of transfer was the dominant

163

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

motif. Both the original Platonic epigram and its expanded Latin form
in Aulus Gellius refer to erotic love between a man and a youth. It
appears that in the Phaedrus a condescension is made by Plato even
to the noblest lovers, for he allows or tolerates their kissing and em-
bracing.^’ But whatever the actual sexual practices of fifteenth century
Florence were, the mores were not then such as to be openly indulgent
of homosexuality. Since Ficino's own system refers to an intellectual
homosexual relationship whose spirituality must be protected at all
costs, such intimacies as the kiss (even on a metaphorical level) would
have appeared unseemly.

There is another passage later in the Commentary (VII, vi) that
gives us a clue to what I take to have been Ficino's reluctance if not
repugnance to think of the kiss and other sexual intimacies as a means
for effecting or even symbolizing the union or mutual transformation
of Platonic lovers. This occurs where the philosopher, in condemning
pederastic love, tells us that it is the opinion of some that the sexual
embrace between the mature man and a youth is an attempt to effect
the rejuvenation of the older man. Such a thought is based upon the
unhappy belief that a transformation of lovers can be realized by
seminal flow.^® Ficino acknowledges that though such a practice is
insane, it does confirm the idea that love (even in its carnal expression)
is itself the desire for mutual indwelling. But what is possible of spirits
is not so of bodies, and in illustrating the impossibility of such a con-
version of bodies, Ficino cites the "example" of Lucretius ("amantium
omnium infelicissimus"), quoting a part of the famous verses of the
De rerum natura where the Roman poet so vividly describes the rage
of lovers seeking in vain to penetrate into one another and become as
one by means of kisses and the sexual embrace. Hence Ficino had be-
fore him a notable literary example illustrating for him the madness
of the idea of the mutual incorporation of bodies.^'*

The fact is that in Ficino's philosophy of love there is simply no
room for carnal contact of any kind, and least of all for the sense of
touch. For him the senses can only keep man earthbound, whereas the
proper and ultimate object of love is the Divinity, who is reflected
among bodies as Beauty. Beauty, however, is a quality that can be
fully appreciated only by the mind assisted in its work of perceiving
and enjoying the divine quality by the sense of sight alone (sometimes
by hearing also), which has an ancillary role by virtue of its relative
incorporeality and its function as an instrument transmitting to the

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THE RENAISSANCE NEOPLATONIC PHASE

mind the “splendor" of the deity as found in bodiesd® It is only right
to insist on this point that, for Ficino, the true object of desire, by
which the lover is attracted, is the splendor of the Divinity manifest-
ing itself in an earthly creature. Of equal importance, however, is the
fact that the lover himself may be unaware of this metaphysics of
love. For this reason, Ficino says, lovers are stricken with troubling
passions in the presence of the beloved. In this context he refers to
and justifies the lover's desire to be transformed into the beloved. In
the final analysis, Ficino says, such a desire derives from the wish to
exchange one's humanity for divinity, that is, to be transformed into

God.is

Particularly in view of the latter thought one might wish to see
a similarity between Ficino's love philosophy and the notion of
Christian friendship as we found it expounded by St. Aelred. But we
must hasten to add that there is in Aelred's system an element that
is missing from the Ficinian exposition; and it is one that makes for a
considerable difference between Christian friendship and the pre-
tensions of Renaissance Neoplatonic lovers (or friends) in general. In
Aelred's system, where friendship and union among men are a way
of ascending to friendship and union with Cod, Christ is really always
present as Mediator and Terminus. Aelred was able to pass easily,
naturally we may say, from the spiritual kiss (union) between friends
to the ecstatic intellectual kiss of union between creature and Christ.
Of course, it must be allowed that within Ficino's own system friend-
ship, or love between creatures, is intended to be a way of ascension
to Cod, even as the passages we have just examined would seem to
indicate, especially where it is said that what the lover desires is the
Divinity, of which the particular beauty in the beloved is only a re-
flection. But we also remember Ficino saying that the lover himself
is not aware of w'hat it is he really loves or desires. Now if this be so,
then it must be said that in Christian friendship the loving friend be-
gins from a far more advantageous position, which makes the dif-
ference. As a Christian, he knows that what he loves in his friends is
Cod, specifically the second person of the Trinity, and better yet, the
person of Jesus Christ. Without doubt it would be folly to judge
Ficino's overall concept of love and friendship solely on the basis of
his Commentary on the Symposium}' Nevertheless, because it is the
work in which his philosophy of love and friendship is most con-
sistently worked out, and because it was the work that inaugurated

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

and then permeated Neoplatonic speculation on love throughout the
Renaissance, we may judge it for what it is, that is, a discussion of
“Platonic love," not of Christian love or friendship. And this is true
despite Ficino's implementation of Christian concepts and his desire to
make Plato appear a kind of precursor of Christian truth. The most
striking or shocking feature of the work, read from the vantage point
of some fifteen centuries (now twenty) of Christianity, is the absence
of Christ. Whatever praise one may feel disposed to give to Ficino's
Platonic lover as a “Renaissance man" on his own, making his way
to the citadel of Truth and Beauty, indeed, to God, it must be said
that he makes his way in a groping fashion as no Christian need grope
and that he finds himself in a relationship with a God who is far from
being a person as the Christian God is a Person.

Quite simply then, Aelred's system of friendship is, as any Chris-
tian system of friendship must be, Christocentric. A “Platonic" system,
for obvious reasons, cannot be that. Augustine once said that the
Platonists would only have to change a few words to be in line with
Christian truth, and Ficino quoted the bishop of Hippo on the matter
in his own Theologia Platonica. But the overwhelming truth of the
Incarnation was such that Augustine could not equate Platonism and
Christianity. Thus in speaking of man's ability to acquire Wisdom, he
once said that there was more than one way to reach it [Soliloc^uia, I,
xiii, 23]; but he later retracted that heresy, proclaiming clearly that
there was but one way and that it was Jesus Christ: “Ego sum via"
[Retractiones, I, iv].

Ficino and Divine Love

Although Ficino's exposition of the death, resuscitation, and
mutual indwelling of lovers was introduced by a reference which
intimated Plato to be at its source, the most significant part of its
language, we suggested, perhaps derived from the descriptions of divine
love in the tradition of medieval Christian spirituality. It is therefore
significant that we find in this writer, who was himself a man of the
Church, just such a medieval-like soliloquoy or dialogue between the
soul and God which is a more orthodox counterpart to the ecstatical
page from his Commentary on Plato's Symposium. The value of this
short theological dialogue, which occurs in a “letter" to Michele
Mercati da San Miniato, is the greater for us in that at its very core

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THE RENAISSANCE NEOPLATONIC PHASE

we encounter nothing less than the image of insufflation by a kiss.
Here the relationship between God and the soul is characterized as
one between a father and daughter, and the very first thing the soul
wishes for is the certainty that she may have the grace of God
breathed into her. However, because of the infinite superiority of the
Father, she despairs of being able to contain him within herself. God,
however, puts the soul's fears to rest by explaining that he is both
tiny and immense, that he is the fullness that penetrates all without
being penetrated, but that he is in her because she is in him. Follow-
ing God's reassuring explanations, the "illuminated" soul gives ex-
pression to a rapturous hymn. What is this great and tender love that
so sweetly dissolves her, that spurs her? What bittersweet feeling
[Quam dulcis amaritudo] is it that consumes her and, now that she has
tasted it, causes her to consider as sweet those things that are bitter?
Seized by a holy madness, the soul bursts into the following exclama-
tions, the language and theme of which will seem familiar enough to
us:

Oh, what a living death [viva mors] is this! Who would think that
that by which I die unto myself makes me live in God; dying unto
death I live to life and rejoice in joy [gaiidco gnudio]. O pleasure be-
yond all senses, O happiness surpassing understanding, O joy that
transcends the mind! Now indeed I am outside myself [my mind]
and yet with mind because above mind. Now I am in a furor; yet I
do not descend to low things, for by it I am raised on high. Now I am
entirely consumed, and yet I am not diminished, for he who makes
me live within him gathers me unto him: God the unity of all unity
[Dens nnitas unitatum]. Therefore rejoice with me vou who rejoice in
God. Behold, God has come unto me. The God of the universe has
embraced me [Deus universi amplexns est me]. The God of Gods has
entered into my marrow, and now nourishes me. He who begot me
now regenerates me. He who created me transforms me into an angel,
transforms me into God!**

I have not hesitated to speak of the kiss image as being at the
core of this description. If the father-daughter relationship conveys the
idea of a personal God, it is equally clear that the Deity figures also
as a cosmic Spirit. As in Augustine's embracements with Sophia dis-
cussed in an earlier chapter, here too the idea of the infusion or in-
breathing (again during an embrace) of a divine Spirit that fills and
nourishes leaves little doubt that the kiss as the vehicle of this trans-

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

fusion is to be understood as an essential part of the picture of this
embrace between the soul and God. By this embrace-kiss the soul ex-
periences an ecstatic enthotisiasmos by which it is transformed into
God.'®

Renaissance Platonic Love and the Hierarchy of the Senses

What we have said of Ficino in regard to Platonic love may also
be said of those Neoplatonizing theorists of love contemporary with
and after him who insisted on the most spiritual relationship between
persons: it would seem that the kiss, whether real or symbolical, could
not easily be accommodated to their systems, and such an intimacy
and others suggestive of sensual love were ruled out with a conscious
and forensic deliberation, at least where love, even human love, was
considered in its highest form. It may be useful to pause for a moment
on this matter and consider the position of the explicator of a doctrine
of Platonic love in Pietro Bembo's Asolani. In keeping with Ficino's
conception of the hierarchy and function of the senses, Bembo (or
rather, the speaker Lavinello) allows sight and hearing to be the only
senses by which beauty can be truly known and enjoyed. And as these
"spirituaF' senses (and man's thought) are exalted, the "material"
senses and the pleasures they offer are correspondingly debased:

Wherefore, if good love, as I have said, is a desire for beauty, and
if no part of us and of our senses except our eyes, ears, and mind can
lead us to it [i.e., beauty], then all that which is sought by lovers with
our other senses — save what is sought for the preservation of life — is
not good love but evil. Hence, in the latter case, Gismondo, you would
be a lover not of beauty but of disgustful things. For it is foul and
beastly to seek those pleasures that lie not in our own control and
that cannot be had without seizing and possessing what belongs to
another; moreover, such pleasures are inherently disturbing, harm-
ful, terrestrial, and slimy, whereas you are able to have those pleasures
of which the enjoyment rests in our power and in enjoying them we
do not seize upon anything that belongs exclusively to another, and
each one [i.e., each pleasure] is in itself proper, innocent, spiritual,
and pure.^®

It is clear that the condemnation of the "lower" senses is so ab-
solute in the Neoplatonic system of pure love that no room should be
found within it for the kiss, since even the chastest kiss brings into

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THE RENAISSANCE NEOPLATONIC PHASE

operation the two most corporeal senses, taste and touch. This is the
rationale that explains the absence, perhaps the deliberate eschewal,
of the soul-in-the-kiss conceit in Ficino and Bembo and in other ex-
positors of Platonic love. For the same reason the kiss conceit is not
found in some of the more popular treatises on love, such as those
by G. Betussi and Tullia d'Aragona. In all these authors love is said
to be a desire on the part of lovers for a mutual transformation, but the
conviction that bodies cannot be incorporated into one another makes
them insist that the transformation can only be achieved as an ex-
change of souls or hearts whose mode of conveyance must be com-
pletely spiritual Tullia d'Aragona gives a neat summary of the
"orthodox" position in the following passage:

Honest love ... is not born of [physical] desire as the other [sensual
love] is, but of reason, and its chief aim is the transformation of the
lover in the beloved with the desire that she [the beloved] be trans-
formed into him, in which case from two they become one alone and
four; and of this transformation both Francesco Petrarca and the
most reverend Cardinal Bembo have discoursed frequently and
eloquently. Since this transformation can only be effected spiritually,
it follows that in such a love the principal role is occupied by our
spiritual senses, that is by sight and hearing, and even more, because
it is more spiritual, by our imagination."*

And yet, notwithstanding the apparent incompatibility of the
kiss with such a system of pure love, during the sixteenth century
and after, the kiss was so much associated with Platonic love as to be
considered a Neoplatonic sacrament. How this came about, in spite of
Ficino, as it were, is a matter to which we may now turn.

Pico della Mirandola and Death by the Kiss

We have seen that the soul-in-the-kiss conceit was at best only
latent and perhaps deliberately suppressed in the famous passage from
Ficino's Commentary. On the other hand, we have found something
like it in his description of the love between God and the soul. But
it is in a book by Ficino's brilliant contemporary, Pico della Mirandola,
that the image first appears unequivocally in a Renaissance Neo-
platonic context, fully developed as to symbolical and mystical sig-
nificance. In his difficult treatise on love, the Commento sopra una
canzona de amore, a long excursus on a poem by his friend Girolamo

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Benivieni, there is a page where Pico speaks of the experience of the
mind's attainment of the highest stages of contemplation. Pico, how-
ever, describes this experience within the framework of the Neo-
platonic myth of the celestial Venus. The celestial Venus may be seen
and kissed (possessed) only when the lover is free from the weight
and confinement of the bodily senses. This is the condition of ecstasy
or rapture which Pico refers to as a "death" inasmuch as the body
can have no share in the experience. Moreover, the author speaks of
two kinds or gradations of death, which clearly correspond to the two
highest degrees of mystic contemplation, the illuminative and the
unitive. It is only with the second death that the lover can go beyond
seeing and hearing the goddess to embracing her and uniting his soul
with hers in the kiss :

It is possible then through the first death, which is merely the sepa-
ration of the soul from the body, and not otherwise, for the lover to
see the beloved celestial Venus and, face to face with her, meditating
on her divine image, blissfully nourish his purified eyes; but who-
ever wishes to possess her still more intimately and, not content with
seeing and hearing her, to be worthy of her intimate embraces and
fervent kisses, must separate himself in total separation from the body
through the second death; and then not only will he see and hear the
celestial Venus but will be embraced with her in an indissoluble bond,
and pouring out their souls one into the other with kisses, they will
not exchange their souls so much as perfectly unite together, so that
each of them may be said to be two souls and both of them one soul
only.^^

Although Pico's Commento is an exposition of divine love in
Platonistic coloring, many of its basic principles are closely con-
nected with a well-established tradition of Christian spirituality. In
the words just quoted, apart from the concept of the celestial Venus,
the character of Pico's presentation is typical of the medieval mystics.
There is even the biblical echo of Moses' "face to face" meeting with
God (frequently commented upon in the Christian tradition as an
example of mystic union) which Pico has used in describing the meet-
ing between the lover and Venus. Like the Christian mystics before
him, Pico has employed the language and imagery of carnal love to
give an account of a wholly spiritual love. The symbolism of the em-
brace and, particularly of the kiss by which the "souls" of the lover
and the Deity mingle and fuse into one is just what we find in medieval

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THE RENAISSANCE NEOPLATONIC PHASE

mysticism, and the feminizing of the Deity into the celestial Venus is
not unlike Augustine's feminization of Christ into Lady Wisdom (see
chapter i).

Equally striking is the way Pico has employed the metaphor of the
lover's two deaths. Christian spirituality always regarded the state of
ecstasy or highest contemplation as causing a kind of temporary bodily
death. Here Pico almost seems to be following St. Bernard, who had
boldly used the metaphor in referring to the soul's rapture: "I am not
to be thought absurd if I call the bride's ecstasy a death, not, however,
which ends life but one that saves her from the perils of life."^® Before
Pico, Bernard had spoken of the two deaths of the ecstatic mystic,
the deaths corresponding to the two highest degrees of mystic con-
templation — the illuminative and the unitive."'* Another important
point of similarity is to be noticed in the fact that Bernard referred to
the second death as the "death of the angels," an expression used by
the saint to indicate that through it man becomes temporarily like an
angel, that is to say, pure spirit enjoving the purest vision and ex-
perience of the Deity. The same is true of Pico's second death, the
description of which comes in the section of his work where he is dis-
cussing how man may attain to the life of the angels. The second death,
for Pico, as earlier for St. Bernard, indicates that suprarational ex-
perience possible only as an act of love which alone can bring one to
taste and touch the Divinity, that is, fully to know by a possession to
which reason cannot attain. To see and to hear, the highest of the
physical senses in the Platonic-Christian tradition, refer to the activity
of the reason; but in the same tradition they are the least rewarding
of the inner or spiritual senses. What are the lowest in the order of
the physical senses are the highest in the order of the spiritual senses.
Thus the soul must taste and touch the Divinity; it must kiss and em-
brace. It is clear that for Pico, no less than for the medieval affective
mystic, love was, in the final analysis, superior to intellectual knowl-
edge as a way of apprehending and enjoying God, although here (as
even with St. Bernard) we must speak of a meeting of love and knowl-
edge.^®

The union of souls (of lover and the celestial Venus) in a kiss is
the most striking image of our passage from Pico, and it is interesting
to note that the author was aware of both its boldness and its im-
portance as a mystic symbol. Pico, in fact, continues his reference to it
with a gloss in which he justifies his use of the conceit on the grounds

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

that it is the most perfect and most seemly "metaphor" that can be
borrowed from carnal love in order to signify the supreme moment of
mystic contemplation and union, an attitude which he shares with
medieval mystics and the poets of fm' amors:

And take note that the most perfect and intimate union that the lover
may have with the celestial beloved is signified by the union of the
kiss, because all other coming together or coupling beyond that, as in
the case of physical love, is in no way allowed to be used as a metaphor
in this holy and most sacred love.

Now, somewhat curiously, in seeking to illustrate this principle Pico
does not allude to the medieval Christian mystics but rather to a tra-
dition of Jewish mysticism:

And because the learned kabbalists maintain that many of the ancient
patriarchs died in such an intellectual rapture, you will find in their
writings the expression "the death of the bmsica," which in our tongue
means "death by a kiss," which is said of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
Moses, Aaron, Mary, and some others."®

If Pico makes no reference to Christian kiss symbolism, it may be
because he was deliberately avoiding specific allusions to Christianity
in a work meant to be a Platonistic treatise on divine love. The Jewish
mystical tradition could be invoked because it served Pico's syncretistic
ambitions. As is well known, Pico looked upon the kabbala primarily
as a body of esoteric learning which, going back to Moses, confirmed
the deepest truths of Christianity. In the present context the kab-
balistic references are to be taken as corroboration of the description
of the union between the soul and God, in the conception and descrip-
tion of which Pico is really following a long tradition of medieval
mysticism and exegesis of the Song of Songs.

In the writings of the Christian spiritualists, ecstasy or mystic
union appears in the metaphors of a death and a kiss, and sometimes
as both, that is, as a death by a kiss. This last image, however, had
its own development in Judaism, from the rabbinical metaphor of the
death of the righteous by a divine kiss (a painless, tranquil death) to
the kabbalistic elaboration of it into a metaphor signifying an intel-
lectual ecstasy (see chapter 2). It is to this kabbalistic metaphor that
Pico has referred; but in his context the binsica, or mors osculi, as the
Christian kabbalists (and Pico first among them) were to call it, makes
for a further eroticizing of death.^^ For, as applied by Pico, the mystic

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THE RENAISSANCE NEOPLATONIC PHASE

death is associated with the kiss of the celestial Venus. Now it is this
mystic kiss of death (or death by a kiss), Pico goes on to say, that
Solomon desired in the Song of Songs. This, I need hardly say, will not
trouble us. But what must catch us by surprise, if only momentarily,
is to find Pico introducing at just this point the Platonic epigram on
kissing Agathon as an example of the same desire for the mystic death
of the kiss :

And whoever does not understand our previously stated position will
never understand their [the kabbalists] meaning completely; nor will
you read more [about it] in their books than that binsica, that is,
death by a kiss, occurs when the soul unites itself with those things
separated from the earth in an intellectual rapture to such a degree
that being lifted out of the body it abandons it entirely ; but why such
a name is appropriate to such a death has not — as far as I have read —
been expounded by others until now. This is that kiss which our divine
Solomon desires when he exclaims in his Song: "Kiss me with the
kisses of thy mouth." [Baciami co' had della bocca tun.] In his first
verse Solomon sets forth the whole meaning of the book and the final
end of his love. This is what Plato means by the kisses of his Agathon
and not what many, seeing Plato as themselves, believe of him. More-
over, you will see that neither Solomon, nor Plato, nor anyone else
speaking of love, has ever gone further than the kiss when they dis-
coursed on celestial love.'**

Again we note that Pico refers to the kiss as the extreme metaphor
to be used in the description of divine love. That Plato's erotic epigram
is here spiritualized into an expression of the desire for the mystic
death need not puzzle us for long. Plato is considered by Pico to be a
mystic or ecstatic lover. The achievement of mystic union for Pico, as
for all mystics and ecstatics, necessitates a death, that is, an egress or
deliverance of the soul from the body so that, unobstructed by cor-
poreal contingencies and images, it may attain to knowledge of the
true and spiritual order of things. And Plato, like the Christian mystics,
not only allowed that such ecstasy or death could be anticipated
momentarily while in the earthly life, but even suggested that it should
be the most sought-for experience of the wise and spiritual man.“®
Thus, just before the kiss passage, Pico himself had interpreted the
Platonic reference {Symposium, 179) to the myths of Orpheus and
Alcestis as meaning that the philosopher was seeking to show that
perfect knowledge, or fruition of intellectual beauty, necessitates a

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

death of the soul to all corporeal images and earthly values.®” More-
over, because the entire process of knowing is also a matter of desiring
and loving, it is said that the perfect lover is he who dies for love ; "It
is therefore Plato's intention to show that we may in no way hope to be
able to attain the enjoyment of intellectual beauty unless we first
abandon our lower faculties and with them, human life; he does not
love perfectly, that is, with perfect love, who does not die for love
[ne ama perfettamente doe d'amore perfetto, chi per amore non
miiore]."^^ Christianity's great lesson to its followers was just the
same truth: the perfect lover must die unto the old self and the world
for love of the Beloved and in order to be joined with him. In a way,
Pico was interpreting Plato as adumbrating the mysteries of Chris-
tianity. It is not difficult to see now that in a work that is a Platonistic
exposition of doctrines that are felt to be in keeping with Christian
truths, Pico should so allegorize the Platonic epigram that the soul
seeking to pass out of the body — during a kiss — into the body of the
beloved is understood to be the desire for the ecstatic death which
brings union and perfect knowledge.

There are two things that may have contributed in encouraging
Pico to endorse this particular interpretation. The one is that the name
Agathon means the good. The other is that Pico might very well have
believed that the Greek philosopher died during the height of an intel-
lectual ecstasy. In his Theologia Platonica, Ficino had already com-
mented on Plato's teaching that the true aim of philosophy was a
meditation on death inasmuch as contemplation, or speculative philos-
ophy, is (according to Ficino) a separation of reason from the senses
and therefore an anticipatory experience of the ultimate corporeal
death, which is a liberation of the soul from the body.®^ But even more
striking is Ficino s statement that Plato was given to such supreme
contemplation and that he finally died his definitive corporeal death in
such a moment: Since Plato frequently had left the body by long
practice of contemplation, he finally withdrew entirely from the bonds
of his body in that same [state of] abstraction."®® Except for the
absence of the image of the kiss, this is hardly different from what
Pico, following the rabbinico-kabbalist tradition, has to say about
the ecstatic death of the ancient patriarchs, of Solomon's death-kiss
wish, and of Plato s kissing Agathon.®^ Putting it another way, we
can say that Pico speaks of the kisses of Solomon and of Plato in terms

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THE RENAISSANCE NEOPLATONIC PHASE

that are very much like those in which St. Bernard speaks of the kisses
of the bride or of St. Paul.®®

In interpreting Plato's erotic epigram as an allegory of the mystic
lover's desire for union with the Divinity, Pico criticizes those who
regard it in any other way: "This is what Plato means by the kisses of
his Agathon, and not what many, seeing Plato as themselves, believe
of him." This criticism seems to be directed against Marsilio Ficino,
whose exposition of Platonic love is challenged more than once by
Pico in the Commento sopra iina canzona, although in this instance
he does not cite the particular passage.®® As we saw earlier, Ficino him-
self makes no direct reference to the Platonic kiss conceit although he
was drawing upon it (in the expanded version found in Aulus Gellius)
when he wrote his rhapsodic chapter on the death, resuscitation, trans-
formation, and union of lovers in reciprocal love, and it is to this
passage alone, I believe, that Pico could have referred. Now if we
ask what it was about Ficino's words that could have so displeased
Pico, we may with reason answer that Ficino had applied his descrip-
tion to a love between creatures. Pico, writing from the perspective
of a Platonistic-Christian otherworldliness, referred the Platonic kiss
to the unitive relationship between man and the Divinity.

Baldassnre Castiglione, the Ladder of Love, and the Kiss

Ficino, we saw, had not dared or cared to admit the kiss into his
system of Platonic love, not even in a symbolic way, although he
waxed eloquent on the themes of death, exchange of souls, and union
among lovers. Pico readily adopted the soul-in-the-kiss image, but,
like the earlier Christian writers and some medieval Jewish thinkers,
only as a mystical symbol of union between man and the Divinity.
It was left to Baldassare Castiglione, in the Libro del Cortegiano (first
published in 1528), to supply the casuistry needed in order to legitimize
the kiss within a "Platonic" system of love between creatures. It is
not unlikely that Castiglione so dared to relax the rigid spirituality of
Platonic love among creatures, as Ficino had not, because the love re-
lationship he speaks of is heterosexual. We must also remember that
his book reflects not so much the thinking of the serious or professional
philosophers as that of a mundane court society for which it was writ-
ten. Even so, other popular Platonizing treatises on love, we saw, re-

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

fused to compromise on such matters — where the purest or highest
form of human love was involved. Hence, the function granted to the
kiss by Castiglione appears all the more daring and suggestive when
seen in its context of the Neoplatonic hierarchy of the senses, for it
is during the famous exposition of Platonic love made by the inter-
locutor Pietro Bembo that we find the kiss passage.®^

Consistent with the Ficinian theory that the beauty of bodies is
but a reflection of the beauty of souls and, ultimately, of God, and
that the love most worthy of man is the love of soul or mind, the
speaker Bembo holds to the idea that the only senses which should be
operative in the love relationship are sight and hearing. Beauty is
apprehended and enjoyed, and souls are able to commune with each
other through these, the noble senses of man, as they work in harmony
with reason, of which they are said to be the ministers. Because they
are the senses least contaminated by the necessity of carnal contact,
they are worthy of being the alimentary conduits that bring spiritual
food to the soul. The beauty in question here is that pertaining to the
woman loved:

And just as we cannot hear with our palate nor smell with our ears,
so can we in no way enjoy beauty nor satisfy the desire it arouses in
our mind by means of touch, but rather by that sense of which beauty
is the real object, namely the faculty of sight. Let us therefore put
away the blind judgment of sense, and enjoy with our eyes that re-
splendence and grace, those scintillations of love, the smiles, gestures
and all the other charming ornaments of beauty; in like manner let
us enjoy with our hearing the sweetness of voice, the concert of speech,
the harmony of her music (if the beloved be a musician); and thus
the soul will nourish itself with the sweetest food by means of these
two senses which have little to do with corporeal matter and are
ministers to reason, and they will do so without passing any unvirtuous
appetite because of a desire for the body (IV, 62).®®

Bembo then speaks of the migration of the beloved's soul to the lover
by means of the beauty of voice (sound and harmony) and body. When
understood properly, this beauty is seen to be of the soul, if indeed it
be not the soul itself. It enters the lover through the eyes and ears,
which are said to be the passage (Mito) for the soul: "The lady makes
no small sign of love when she grants the lover her beauty, which is
such a precious thing, through the channels that are the passage to

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THE RENAISSANCE NEOPLATONIC PHASE

the soul, namely sight and hearing" (IV, 65). It is shortly after this
statement that the speaker distinguishes two kinds of love between
man and woman: the one is sensual, the other rational. To the lover
of the second kind alone the lady may go so far as to accord a kiss:

Therefore the beloved, in order to gratify her lover, besides offering
him her sweet smiles, her intimate and secret talk, permission to jest
and be merry with her and to take her hand, may rightfully and
blam.elessly go even as far as the kiss, which in sensual love is not
allowed ; for since the kiss is a joining of the body and the soul, there
is a danger that the sensual lover may lean more toward the body than
toward the soul, whereas the rational lover knows that although the
mouth is a part of the body, it is nonetheless the exit for words which
are the interpreters of the soul and for that internal breath which is
itself also called the soul [quello intrinseco anelito che si chiama pur
esso ancor anima]. For this reason [the lover] enjoys fastening his
mouth to that of his lady in a kiss, not in order to awaken any un-
chaste desire, but because he feels that that union is the opening of a
passage to their souls [sente che quello legame e un aprir I'adito alle
anime], which, drawn to one another by mutual desire, alternately flow
into one another's bodies and so mingle together that each of them
[i.e., the lovers] has two souls, and one [soul] alone so composed of the
two supports two bodies, as it were (IV, 64).

This brings to mind Pico's admonishment that in the description
of divine love the kiss is the most extreme yet legitimate image per-
missible for expressing the concept of union. But because we are now
no longer in the realm of metaphor and divine love, we perhaps do
better to recall Andreas Capellanus' dictum on pure love, which al-
lowed the lover to go as far as the kiss; or, indeed, Phaedrus, where
Plato distinguishes different types of lovers and recognizes that even
the noblest of them are drawn to kiss and embrace. Phaedrus, however,
makes no mention of the kiss as a spiritual mingling of souls, which
is what we have in the Cortegiano, where the mouth figures as a pas-
sageway {ddito, as in the case of the eyes and ears) for souls, and the
kiss is seen as a third vehicle or way for them to migrate and mingle.
The souls of the lovers pass from the one body into the other so that
at one point each lover has two souls, but when they have fused, it is
as though one soul sustains the two bodies, a theme which is a com-
monplace in the literature of friendship.

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

One of the most significant and far-reaching points to be made
about Castiglione's kiss passage is that it marks the culmination of
centuries of effort to raise woman to that status of dignity whereby
she is worthy of sharing friendship with man as an equal partner. In
the Middle Ages the two-in-one ideal between male and female was
effected in a relationship that was grounded in a mystico-physical
love passion and was such that the woman was even elevated above
the man in worth. It is clear, I think, that this characteristic of the
courtly-love tradition also has its part in Castiglione's heterosexual
Platonic friendship (or love), for here too it rests in the woman's
discretionary power to grant or withhold the blessings intrinsic to the
kiss. To be sure, this kiss is said to be the unique reward of rational
or pure lovers; but it cannot be forgotten that, as a way for souls to
unite, it calls for the active participation of a highly erogenous part of
the human body and for the sense of touch which, just a moment
before, Bembo had decried as the lowest of man's senses because it
was in no way able to enjoy beauty or satisfy the desires of the soul.
So too, one might say, does the Christian kiss of peace; and, in truth,
we have heard Christian voices raised to denounce the profanation
of the liturgical kiss. But the surrounding contexts of the two kisses
will not allow for more than surface parallels. Despite the ostensible
spirituality of Castiglione's Platonic kiss, it cannot but strike us as
being suspect for the simple reason that it does not rise so completely
from the earthly as to be solely or chiefly symbolical. In the mundane
society of The Book of the Courtier, the distinction between Platonic
and profane love is a nice one which, especially in the kiss passage,
becomes dangerously tenuous. When compared to Pico's more
erotically colored but more truly mystical explication, Castiglione's
disquisition smacks of sophistry, and one senses that it lends itself
readily to abuse.

What we have thus far examined of Castiglione's kiss passage
shows a familiarity with the kind of speculation concerning the mouth
and the kiss that is found in the medieval mystics: the mouth as the
organ for words, which are the expression of the soul, and for the
inward vital breath known as soul. On the other hand, the author's
concluding remarks betray unmistakable echoes from Pico della
Mirandola, especially when the theory of the kiss as a joining of souls
is associated with the kisses of the Platonic epigram and the Song of
Songs :

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THE RENAISSANCE NEOPLATONIC PHASE

Hence the kiss may be described as a joining of souls rather than of
bodies, because it has so much power over the soul that it draws the
soul toward itelf and separates it from the body; for this reason all
chaste lovers long for the kiss as a union of souls; and therefore Plato,
divinely enamored [il divinamente inamorato Platone], says that in
kissing, his soul came to his lips to issue from the body. And because
the separation of the soul from things of the senses and its total union
with things of the mind can be signified by the kiss, Solomon, in his
divine book of the Song, says : "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his
mouth," to reveal the desire his soul had to be rapt by divine love to
the contemplation of heavenly beauty [la bellezza celeste] in such a
way that, by intimate union with it, the soul might abandon the body
(IV, 64).

Pico had spoken first of Solomon's kiss and then of Plato's (or
Agathon's) kisses. Castiglione, we note, has reversed this order. This
inverted order is not casual, but rather is demanded by a context and
purpose that are quite different form what we find in Pico. If Casti-
glione has followed Pico in interpreting the kiss of the Song as an
expression of the soul's desire for union with the Divinity ("la bellezza
celeste"), he departs from him by regarding Plato's kiss as a desire
for the union of souls of two creatures. The phrase "il divinamente
inamorato Platone" might lead one to assume that in the case of Plato,
too, divine love is meant. The fact is, however, that in Castiglione's
context Plato's kiss figures not as a metaphor at all but as an illustrious
example of the idea that the kiss of chaste but real lovers has the effect
of drawing up their souls so that they may unite. That is why, when
Plato was kissing (i.e., kissing Agathon, but Castiglione has been
careful to leave him unnamed), his soul came to his lips in a desire to
issue from his body. Only then does Castiglione tell us that the kiss
can also be used as a metaphor or symbol to signify mystical con-
templation in which the soul is separated from its body and dwells in
the sphere of the suprasensuous or of pure thought. And that, he
now says, is why Solomon (but not, as for Pico, Plato also) asked for
the kiss in his Song : in order to express the desire that his soul, leaving
its body, might be caught up and raised to a union with the Divinity.

Though Castiglione makes no direct mention of kabbalistic lore,
the close of his passage, which speaks of the Song and of the kiss as
signifying a rapture in which the soul abandons the body, indicates
that he had in mind the mors osciili or binsica as explicated by Pico.

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Moreover, this motif is again apparent at the end of the long discus-
sion on love when Bembo raises an impassioned prayer to Love as
the vivifying force of all things and asks that the souls of all present
be made to know the joy of union with the Divinity;

Receive our souls, which we offer up to thee as a sacrifice; burn them
in that living flame that consumes all material ugliness so that, being
wholly separated from our bodies, they may unite with the divine
beauty in a perpetual and most sweet bond, and so that we, being out-
side ourselves, like true lovers may be transformed into the beloved,
and rising beyond the earth be admitted to the banquet of the angels
where, nourished by immortal ambrosia and nectar, we may finally
die that most fortunate and vital death as did long ago those patriarchs
whose souls, by the burning power of contemplation, thou didst en-
rapture from the body and unite with God (IV, 70).

This quotation includes several of the conceits of ecstatic love, among
them that of the transformation of the lover into the beloved. The
closing image of the death of the ancient patriarchs in an ecstasy of
contemplation that joined their souls with God is without doubt an
allusion to the mystic death by a kiss. Concerning this image (the
medieval phase of which has been dealt with in chapter 2 of the pres-
ent study), we may here add another word.

Mors Osculi

First introduced to Christian writers by Pico, the theme of the
mors osculi enjoyed a considerable vogue in the sixteenth century.
Edgar Wind has touched on it in connection with the Renaissance in-
terpretation of the mythological scenes of the love between gods and
men on Roman sarcophagi. The upshot of Wind's investigations is that
Italian Neoplatonists understood the ancients to have conceived of
Amor both as a benign god of death and as a god of love; mortal death
being an embrace of a god, it meant that "to die was to be loved by a
god, and partake through him of eternal bliss."^“ Under the influence
and guidance of the Neoplatonizing humanists, Italian artists evidently
recreated the erotic scenes in this same mythographic or allegorical
key. Hence the popularity of such stories as Leda and the swan,
Ganymede and Zeus (or the eagle), or Endymion and Diana, all of
which included a representation of kissing as of a sign of copulation
and union between the soul and the Deity .‘^® Such representations could

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THE RENAISSANCE NEOPLATONIC PHASE

be regarded as adumbrations of the kabbalistic mors osculi and the
kiss of the Song (in a kabbalist key) or, for that matter, of St. Paul's
more explicit desire to die (be dissolved) in order to be with Christ.
This is made evident by the remarks of Celio Agostino Curione quoted
by Wind:

As there are many kinds of death, this one is the most highly ap-
proved and commended both by the sages of antiquity and by the
authority of the Bible: when those . . . yearning for God and desiring
to be conjoined with him (which cannot be achieved in this prison of
the flesh) are carried away to heaven and freed from the body by a
death which is the profoundest sleep; in which manner Paul desired
to die when he said: I long to be dissolved and be with Christ. This
kind of death was named the kiss by the symbolic theologians, of
which Solomon also appears to have spoken when he said in the Song
of Songs -.Osculetur me osctdo oris sni. And this was foreshadowed in
the figure of Endymion, whom Diana kissed as he had fallen into the
profoundest sleep. . .

Similar observations on the fable of Diana kissing Endymion
were made in an even more influential book, Giulio Camillo's L'idea del
teatro, which Wind does not mention.^' It is to be observed that this
particular line of speculation departs from Pico (and even from
Castiglione) in limiting the concept of the mors osculi to a real albeit
rapturous death uniting the soul with God in the afterlife. Others, how-
ever, such as Leone Ebreo, J. Reuchlin, H. C. Agrippa, and even
Giordano Bruno, follow Pico in understanding it both as a real ecstatic
death of the saints and as a mystical rapture experienced in the highest
stage of divine contemplation during which the soul takes flight, there-
by leaving its body inanimate.^®

The Platonic Kiss: Champions and Skeptics

There is no doubt that the soul-in-the-kiss image received its
greatest impetus in the Renaissance through Castiglione's presentation,
for no man of letters could be ignorant of the Book of the Courtier.
Henceforth the conceit was destined to become one of the most abused
commonplaces in the literature of love. It was quickly exploited by
anyone wishing to praise kisses or — what comes to the same thing —
a lady's mouth or lips, even outside any specific Neoplatonic love
metaphysics. For example, in a didactic dialogue on the charms of

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woman (Dialogo della bellezza, 1541), Agnolo Firenzuola, while dis-
cussing the various parts of the body, gives special attention to the
lips and mouth as being a temple consecrated to the religion of love:
"Under the nose is set the mouth which has two functions: one is
speech, the other is to send food where it is needed; the mouth, split
horizontally, was bordered by nature with two lips, as if of finest coral,
like the banks of a most fair fountain; these [lips] the ancients dedi-
cated to the fair Venus, because there is the seat of love's kisses which
are able to make souls pass from one body to another in mutual ex-
change. Here the conceit is introduced in order to indicate the ex-
change of souls as a third and culminating function of the mouth after
that of speaking and taking food. We notice also that although the
passage is in prose, the conceit has found its way into a context of a
madrigalesque preciosity, a phenomenon that will be frequently re-
peated in the poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

A very curious example of the image can be found in one of the
most bizarre of Renaissance treatises on woman, Michelangelo
Biondo's Angoscia, Doglia, e Pena (1546). The author employs it with-
in the context of a nuptial relationship which is not the mystical mar-
riage of the Christian tradition but the marriage here on earth between
man and woman: "Oh, sweet mouth, delicious mouth, gentle mouth,
pleasing mouth, when we live peacefully in blessed and holy matri-
mony! because by means of the mouth there enters the spirit [spirito]
of two bodies, known as 'breath' [fiato]. Oh God! How great a mystery
of thy majesty this is: to make of two spirits one only, uniform, con-
sonant, harmonious, at peace, and of one same will."^® One hears the
echo of Paul's famous words that speak of man and wife becoming one
flesh — words, he said, which are a high mystery and that he applied
to Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:31-33). But Biondo has spoken of
the two — husband and wife — becoming not one flesh but one spirit.
Also worthy of notice is Biondo's awareness that the concept of the
joining of spirits in the kiss depends upon the connection between
spirit and breath (fiato), upon the semantic ambiguity or richness of
spirit.

In still another curious Renaissance treatise on woman, 11 Convito,
overo del peso della moglie (1554), Giovanni Battista Modio puts the
origin of the embrace and the kiss between man and woman in the
Platonic androgynous myth: "Now it happened that being in disfavor
with the gods for their faults, they were by the powers of Jove and

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THE RENAISSANCE NEOPLATONIC PHASE

Apollo each divided into two halves; each of these halves would run
to embrace and reunite himself with his other half. Whence was born
the embrace and the kiss — and these are the sweetest and most longed-
for pledges of love."^® It is strange, in fact, that there is not more
frequent reference to the androgynous myth in the Renaissance em-
ployment of the kiss image than we actually find. But that myth must
have presented itself to many who thought of the kiss as a desire for
union, of a merging of two into one, and we will find other allusions
to it.

Of more interest to us in the remainder of the present chapter is
the Renaissance speculation on the kiss within broader discussions of
love than are found in the treatises on women. In this connection we
may say that Neoplatonizing Italians continued to expound the idea
that the kiss, when made between chaste or Platonic lovers, was a real
means for the mingling or reciprocal transfusion of souls. For example,
at the end of the sixteenth century, Annibale Romei, a nobleman of the
court of Ferrara, tells us (somewhat like Castiglione before him) that
the kiss is allowed as a reward to those who practice "amor casto" —
that kind of love in which the partners are moved by each other's
human beauty to the contemplation of the "true and essential beauty"
with which alone they are content. Romei's chaste lovers desire to kiss
only because they wish to mingle souls. And here, once again, the ex-
ample of Plato's kiss is called upon:

To this love it appears that the kiss may be granted as a reward, inas-
much as the kiss is more a union of souls than of bodies. For by means
of the kiss, in which lovers effect an exceedingly sweet passage of
highly lively spirits into one another's heart, the souls of lovers become
bound together in so indissoluble a knot of love that from the two
one single soul is formed, and thus formed it governs two bodies. For
this reason chaste lovers desire to come to the kiss as the true bond
of souls. Wherefore the divine Philosopher, enamored with a chaste
love, said in his Symposium that in kissing, his soul came to his lips
in order to fly forth.'*’^

Romei has the content of the Platonic epigram right, but his attribution
of it to the Symposium and to a context of pure love is, of course, in-
correct. But the error itself is significant, revealing as it does that the
soul-in-the-kiss conceit was felt to be authentically Plato's, a fact that
gave it great credit.

Of course, there were always those who openly displayed

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

skepticism regarding Platonic love itself while defending the necessity
and legitimacy of physical love. Already in Castiglione's own Book of
the Courtier, the realist Morello, with his practical good sense, appears
as the advocate of a healthy physical love, although the author evi-
dently meant him to be a foil to Bembo's ethereal conception of love.
In response to the idea that the lady's beauty is to be enjoyed outside
of any carnal contact in order that it may be engendered in the beauty
of the mind, Morello suggests the begetting of real children as a more
likely way for beauty to be engendered. It is Bembo, however, who
is allowed to have the last word on the matter.

One of the writers to champion the cause of a sober physical love
— when sanctioned by wedlock — was Flaminio Nobili, who is of
particular interest to us because of the way he brings the matter of
the kiss into the controversy. In a Trattato (1556), Nobili first criti-
cizes the Neoplatonic theory of the ladder of love, which regards the
beauty of the human creature as a way to rise to the contemplation of
the Creator. There are the beauties of the heavens, of light, and the
general perfection of the universe that are immediately accessible
to man and which one may more safely contemplate in desiring to
rise to the knowledge of the supreme Beauty that is God. Experience
shows, Nobili ironically hints, that too often the would-be lover of the
Divine, when beginning with the beauty of the creature, fails to make
any progress at all.^'*

Without denying that the union of lovers' souls is one of the
aims of love, Nobili suggests that since souls dwell in bodies, they
can be expected to unite to the degree that the bodies themselves are
joined to one another. That such bodily contact is natural and legit-
imate is proven by the fact that even children desire to embrace their
parents, and brothers and friends desire to embrace one another. There
follows the appeal to Plato's androgynous myth, which sets forth the
idea that lovers desire to be welded together. Then, as though in
pointed opposition to Ficino, who had referred to the famous Lucretian
description of the furious sexual embrace of lovers as proof of the
impossibility of true union, Nobili avails himself of the same ex-
ample as one favoring his own opinion that corporeal union is natural
and necessary. Finally the author attacks the theorists of Platonic
love — "these superstitious writers of love" — on the matter of their
allowance and interpretation of the kiss, reminding them that the kiss
represents first of all a joining of bodies, and that as such it is com-

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THE RENAISSANCE NEOPLATONIC PHASE

mon even to animals. As far as he is concerned, however, there is really
no need to deny this very corporeal kiss and further carnal union to
that honest human love sanctioned by the divine decree that men
propagate the human species :

This is clearly evident in the case of things that are dearest to us, as
in our children, brothers, and friends whom by natural instinct we
want to touch and embrace. For this reason Aristophanes, according
to Plato, had no doubt that lovers would like to find a Vulcan who
would fuse them completely with the beloved in order to become one
by this welding instead of two as much as possible ; and Lucretius, also
discoursing on love, said that the lover would like to penetrate with
all his body the entire body of his lady. And I see that the kiss is
permitted by these superstitious writers on love — and the kiss is after
all still the joining of bodies, and common even to animals; so that
this joining is not contrary to human love — meaning by human love
that which is reasonable and honest — unless followed by the violation
of the laws and unless other conditions of moderation are infringed.^®

One of the most spirited and entertaining attacks on the kiss un-
derstood as a sacramental tenet of Platonic love is to be found in the
Dialoghi piacevoli (1586) of Stefano Guazzo. In the dialogue entitled
Dell'honor delle donne, as two friends discuss the various types and
classes of women and their habits, one of them, Annibale, expatiates
with undertones of irony on that particular breed of women who are
the grandes amoureuses of Platonic love;

Let us go on to that band of strange women — 1 mean those who, in
order to be thought among the more learned matrons, lend willing
ears to Platonic lovers ; and while decrying vulgar and lascivious love,
turn with joyful countenances to be courted philosophically. Nor are
they content to remain in conversation with certain lofty minds and to
continue discoursing on how the pleasure that is felt in gazing at a
lovely face should be transformed into an inner gazing at a greater
beauty, but they graciously agree in the end to three degrees of love :
the first is to receive some jewel from their lovers and to give one in re-
turn; the second is to allow their hands to be kissed; the third and last is
to comfort them with that pure kiss of the mouth, by virtue of which
their souls attain mutual marriage [quell'honesto bacio della bocca,
in virtu del quale si vengono a sposar Vanime insieme], and remain
eternally joined by a holy and indissoluble bond. But do not suppose
that strength of love, humility of prayers and sighs, tenderness of
tears, length of service, liberality of gold and silver, or the whole world

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

together, would be enough to make them overstep the bounds of these

three favors. What do you say now to this Platonic love?®°

Here then are specific references to Platonic lovers and Platonic
love accompanied by the significant allusion to the kiss as a rite by
means of which souls are joined in wedlock. The insistence on the
kiss as the ultimate intimacy that the lady will grant recalls both
Castiglione and Andreas Capellanus. But Guazzo has presented this
picture of pure or Platonic love with the intention of ridiculing it as
an absurd and even hypocritical convention. Thus in giving his opinion
concerning this curious practice, the second interlocutor, Lodovico,
wastes no time in discrediting it. Some of his remarks, moreover, are
especially acute. This would-be spiritual love is really one that puts the
spirit asleep and rouses sensual desire without satisfying it. Besides
this, Lodovico complains, there is something dishonest in the way it is
carried out, because the women are married and practice their mysteries
of love without a word about it to their husbands. This is another point
that the practice of Platonic love as described by Guazzo has in common
with medieval courtly love. But if they have something in common
with the medieval ladies of courtly love, these Renaissance dames also
look forward to Moliere's precieuses ridicules; for, as Annibale says,
if they keep their religion of love a secret from their husbands and
others, that is because the latter, not having read Plato, might very
easily misunderstand the true nature of this love. The remark is
obviously ironic, because Annibale summarily concludes the entire
discussion with a flat pronouncement that the custom of these ladies
may be all very well, but that he for one has no liking for it: "But
what more shall I say? Their custom may be fine and good, but it
doesn't please me at all."®*

The case of Guazzo is most instructive, for it is not the kiss as
such that he objects to but its abuse — as in hypocritical Platonic lovers.
Thus in a different context he provides us with an equally spirited
defense of the kiss as a greeting. Protesting against those who would
limit osculatory salutations to persons having family ties, Guazzo
recognizes that the kiss has become contaminated, but he suggests
the possibility of its repristination with an appeal to the philosophers
(very likely the Italian Neoplatonists), the kabbalists, the mystical
explanation of the Song of Songs, and, failing all this, to the tradition
of the kiss of peace which, he says, Christ himself bequeathed to man-
kind:

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THE RENAISSANCE NEOPLATONIC PHASE

The wickedness of man has now reached such proportions that in
many places the exchange of the kiss between friends in public has
been forsaken, and only the kiss between relatives is condoned. But
it is meet to remind our overzealous moralists that if they prefer not
to lend credence to those philosophers who affirm that in this quite
chaste kiss souls unite virtuously, and if they will not believe the
kabbalists who maintained that without the kiss we cannot unite with
heavenly things nor with God, which kiss, moreover, cannot occur
until death dissolves this body of ours that keeps us separated from
true union and from the kiss that supernal things would like to give to
our souls — which Giulio Camillo holds was signified by Solomon
where the latter calls out "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his
mouth"- — if, I repeat, they are not willing to believe any of this, they
at least ought to believe in Christ our Saviour who bequeathed the
kiss to us on earth as a sign of peace.®^

As we shall see, the polemic surrounding the soul kiss and other
conventions of Platonic love was engaged in by the poets of the
Renaissance-Baroque period in their own inimitable ways. For the
moment, however, we may point out another way in which opposition
to Platonic love (and its kiss) came not only from realistic or sensual
lovers, but from the moralistic voice of the Counter Reformation as
well. Toward the end of the sixteenth century the Church authorities
called upon one of its scholars, Antonio Ciccarelli, to prepare an
edition of the Book of the Courtier that would be expurgated of any-
thing not in keeping with strict Catholic morality. In particular, the
fourth book was to be annotated wherever Castiglione had written
about love in an unorthodox manner, that is, "in those parts in which
the author discusses love not according to his own true understand-
ing of it, but in the manner of the Platonic school."^® Now, interest-
ingly enough, Ciccarelli retained the kiss passage in its entirety, per-
haps because it was too well known for him to have done otherwise.
His method of attempting to blunt its piquancy was to explain it away
as a case of bantering by the author: "He [Castiglione] here jokes
about the opinion of the Platonists who maintain that in divine love
the kiss is quite in order in its capacity as a sign of the union of
minds. But this gloss is as revealing as it is curious. Besides the
fact that Castiglione was the first openly to justify the kiss between
Platonic lovers (i.e., creatures) and was most likely not jesting, in
considering the use of the kiss as a symbol of the union of souls in
divine love to be strictly a "Platonic" idea, Ciccarelli was ignoring

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

(wilfully?) the fact that this kiss symbolism had long been in common
usage among the most respected and authoritative Christian writers.
At any rate^ the gloss is yet another indication of how closely as-
sociated with Renaissance Neoplatonism the image of the soul-
uniting kiss had become.

188

6. The Kenaissance-Taroque Jige

From Classical to Neo-Latin Poets

he Neo-Latin poets of the Renaissance occupy an impor-
tant place in the history of the soul-in-the-kiss conceit,
primarily because of the inherent interest of their own
poetry, but also because along with the literature of Neo-
platonic love their erotic Muse represents a major source for many
vernacular poets who subsequently used the image. As found in the
earliest of the Neo-Latin poets, toward the end of the fifteenth century,
the conceit figures as an amatory image independent of any Neopla-
tonic influence and very likely derives from an early Greek or Latin
example such as those registered by Stephen Gaselee.* It was not long,
however, before traces of Italian Neoplatonic accretions attached
themselves here too, although they did so invariably as refinements of
the purely voluptuous pleasures associated with kissing.

As is well known, the love poetry of the Neo-Latin poets was
greatly influenced by Catullus and the Latin elegists, Tibullus, Pro-
pertius, and Ovid. Under the spell of these ancient masters of sensual
love poetry, the Renaissance emulators even created a genre of poetry
known as the basium in which all the real and imaginary delights of
kissing are extolled. Although the soul-in-the-kiss image does not ap-
pear in the works of the earlier Roman poets, they nonetheless concern
us directly for a very important reason: the bequeathal to their latter-
day epigones of the passionate columbine kiss. With the Renaissance
Neo-Latin poets, the soul-in-the-kiss image becomes directly related
to the kiss in which wanton tongue play is exalted. The connection,
moreover, was to prove an enduring one in some quarters. In English,
for example, the deep kiss in which lingual stimulation is practiced is
known both as “tongue kiss" and "soul kiss," as well as by the more
commonly used expression "French kiss."^

How well the ancients knew the value of such a kiss as a pre-
ludious and sexually excitatory play is demonstrated by Ovid when,
in describing how utter was his fiasco in a love combat on one occasion,
he tells us that not even the tongue kiss could make him respond ;

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Ilia quidem nostro subiecit eburnea collo
Bracchia, sithonia candidiora nive,

Osculaque inseruit cupidis luctantia linguis,

Lascivum femori supposuitque femur.®

This same lascivious image is evoked again by Ovid when such kisses
are said to be improha only because they are being given not to him
but to someone else;

Improba turn vero iungentes oscula vidi
(Ilia mihi lingua nexa fuisse liquet) :

Qualia non fratri tulerit germana severo,

Sed tulerit cupido mollis arnica viro.’’

Such furious lingual combat is also counseled by Tibullus :

Et dare anhelanti pugnantibus umida linguis
Oscula et in collo figere dente notas.°

Like true epigones, the Renaissance Neo-Latin poets celebrated
such kisses with cloying promiscuity. In a few cases, however, the
poetic results are not to be scorned, and some of the very best poetry
of kissing so lavishly indulged in by these poets is to be found in those
instances where the image of the mingling and exchange of spirits or
souls is employed. Occasionally, moreover, they couple the image with
the erotic conceit of the death of the lover, that is, with the use of the
term "death" as a metaphor for the ecstatic sensation experienced at
the height of sensual pleasure in kissing or in coition itself. In this
connection the following verses of Petronius must have been of some
import:

Qualis nox fuit ilia, di deaeque,

Quam mollis torus, haesimus calentes
Et transfudimus bine et hinc labellis

^ "Indeed she threw her ivory arms, whiter than Thracian snow, about my neck,
and thrust kisses struggling with passionate tongues, and placed lustful thigh
under my thigh." Amoves, III, vii, 7-10.

"Then indeed I saw them joining shameless kisses (that tongue had belonged
to me); such [kisses] that a sister would not have given an austere brother, but
that a compliant girl would have given a passionate man." Amoves, 11 , v, 24—26.

' "And give to the panting [lover] moist kisses with battling tongues and sink
marks into the neck with the teeth." I, viii, 37-38.

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THE RENAISSANCE-BAROQUE ACE

Errantes animas. valete, curae
Mortales. ego sic perire coepi.**

Here in a pagan context of antiquity is a clear example of the exchange
of lovers' souls in the kiss accompanied by the lover's dying in a
sexual sense.®

Other pagan examples in Latin of the soul-kiss conceit that could
have been known to Renaissance writers are those that occur in the
verse of Claudian, a writer of late antiquity (c. a.d. 370-410) who is
often called the last poet of classical Rome. It is significant that they
appear in the context of epithalamia where it was customary for the
poet to invite the bridegroom and bride to the joys of sexual love. Near
the end of one such epithalamium it is Venus herself who joins the
hands of the young couple and blesses their union with the counsel
that they live as one, carrying out the goddess's rites, kissing endlessly,
bruising their arms in embraces, and joining their souls at their lips:

Vivite Concordes et nostrum discite munus.

Oscula mille sonent; livescant brachia nexu;

Labra ligent animas.®

In a similar vein, the following verses from a poem celebrating the
marriage of the emperor Honorius urge frequent kisses to be breathed
sweetly like those of doves until, the couple's soul-breaths having been
united at their lips, sleep may finally quiet their panting:

Et murmur querula blandius alite
Linguis absiduo reddite mutuis.

Et labris animum conciliantibus,

Alternum rapiat somnus anhelitum.^

"What a night was that, ye gods and goddesses! How soft the couch! We
clung, passionate together and transfused our straying souls back and forth
through our lips. Farewell mortal cares! Thus I begin to die." Satyricon, 79, 8.

® "Live in union and learn our rite; let a thousand kisses resound; let arms turn
black and blue in [your] embrace; let lips bind [your] souls." "Epithalamium of
Palladius and Celerina," vss. 130-152; in Claudian with an English Translation by
Maurice Platnauer, I, (Cambridge, Mass., and London, Loeb Classical Library,
1956), 214.

^ "And to each other's tongues give continually a murmur more soothing than
a warbling bird. And while the lips unite the soul, let sleep take each panting
breath in turn." "Fescennine Verses in Honour of the Marriage of the Emperor
Honorius," IV, vss. 21-24. In Claudian, II, 238. Gaselee (see Introduction) men-
tioned these verses in a note but was of the opinion that they refer not to kisses
but only to the low whisperings of lovers!

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Between these examples from Claudian and the Renaissance
humanist poets may be recalled the verses from the charming "Lydia,
bella puella Candida/' an anonymous poem which has not yet been
successfully dated:

Porrige labia, labra corallina

Da columbarum mitia basia;

Sugis amantis partem animi;

Cor mi penetrant haec tua basia.®

As we have said at the outset of the present chapter, this columbine or
billing kiss that sucks up the soul-breath was to be particularly appeal-
ing to Renaissance poets.

It is also necessary to note that in their osculatory verse the
Renaissance poets most certainly kept in mind the lines from Lucretius
(De rerum natura, IV, 1073—1.120) that describe the violent embrace
of lovers who, in kissing, intermingle saliva and breath in the vain
attempt to interpenetrate one another. But what Lucretius described
as an example of the madness and indecorous behavior of men under
the dominion of passion, the Renaissance poets exult in as one of life's
supreme delights.

The first of the Renaissance Neo-Latin poets to be remembered
here is the Neapolitan Giovanni Pontano (1426-1503). If, when kiss-
ing his lady, there is no "soul" or "spirit," a coldness and a melancholy
come over him. On the other hand, when they exchange passionate,
biting kisses in which their souls or spirits mingle, then a languor
comes over the poet, and a desire to die. But by those same kisses the
poet is in fact kept alive; his mistress's tongue inserted in his mouth
keeps the passageway closed so that his soul is prevented from issuing
forth and he from dying in her bosom :

Basia cum strictis offers mihi clausa labellis
Deque tuo nullus spiritus ore venit,

Nescio quid turn triste animum subit ipsaque nostro
Frigescunt tacito basia in ore situ.

At cum rapta sonant mordacibus oscula labris
Mixtus et alterno spiritus ore coit,

® Offer your lips, your coral lips; give the soft kisses of doves; you suck part
of your lover’s soul (breath); these kisses of yours pierce my heart." Quoted from
An Anthology of Medieval Latin, ed. S. Gaselee (London, 1925), pp. 68—69. Gaselee
notes that scholars are not yet agreed whether the pretty little poem is of late
imperial days or a medieval Italian production."

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THE RENAISSANCE-BAROQUE AGE

Meque color, meque et sensus animusque relinquunt
Inque tuo iaceo languidus ipse sinu.

At tu, cum dederis mihi suavia, consere linguam
Inter labra, meo semper et ore fove,

Ne pateant animo egressus, ne frigida lingua
Torpeat, ipse tuo deficiamque sinu.''

In another place Pontano recalls the first kisses of his lady and
how, with their lips adhered together, their intermingling spirits
passed alternately from one mouth to the other. Also of interest here
is the poet's conceit that if death (the Orcus) had seized them at that
moment, the lovers would have been taken as one soul and one shade,
an idea which might just owe something to Dante (see chapter 3) :

Ilia, uxor, memini nunc, oscula prima fuere:

Nostra tuis, tua labra meis haesere, diuque
Spiritus alterno hue, illuc se miscuit ore.

Tunc Orcus si nos una rapuisset, amantum
Una futura anima, una etiam simul umbra futura.*

Among the most admired of the Neo-Latin poets of the Renais-
sance was the Italianized Greek, Michele Marullo Tarchaniota (1453-
1500). One of his best-known pieces develops the soul-in-the-kiss
image. When he steals a kiss from his lady, the poet's soul is left on
her lips; in vain the poet sends his heart to fetch his soul, for it too
remains a captive (but of his lady's eyes). Had it not been for a vital
heat that was bestowed by the very kiss in which his soul escaped
from him, the poet would surely have died:

Suaviolum invitae rapio dum, casta Neaera,

Imprudens vestris liqui animam in labiis,

** "When you offer me closed kisses with tight lips and from your mouth no
breath comes, then an indefinable sadness steals into my mind and our very
kisses grow cold in our silent mouths. But when snatched kisses resound on biting
lips and mingled breaths unite in each other's mouths, color and soul and sense
desert me, and I myself lie fainting on your breast. Now do you, when you have
given me kisses, plant your tongue between my lips and keep it ever warm within
my mouth, lest passageways are made for the soul, lest the cold tongue stiffen
and I myself expire upon your breast." Carmina, ed. J. Oeschger (Bari, 1948), p.

423-^

' "Remember now, my wife, what those first kisses were: my lips clung to yours,
yours to mine, and for long the breath mingled together now in that mouth, now
in the other. Had Orcus taken us together then, there would have been one soul
of lovers, and at the same time one shade." Carmina, II, ed. B. Soldati (Florence,
1902), 7. Again, but even more sensually, the conceit appears in connection with
the tongue kiss in a lyric generally entitled "Ad Alfonsum Ducem Calabriae":
In Carmina (Bari, 1.948), p. 294.

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Exanimusque diu, cum nec per se ipsa rediret
Et mora lethalis quantulacunque foret,

Misi cor quaesitum animam; sed cor quoque blandis
Captum oculis nunquam deinde mihi rediit.

Quod nisi suaviolo flammam quoque, casta Neaera,

Hausissem, quae me sustinet exanimum,

Ille dies misero, mihi crede, supremus amanti
Luxisset, rapui cum tibi suaviolum.-'

Marullo's delightful poem was much admired and imitated by
vernacular poets; but where the conceits that interest us are concerned,
the most important and influential of the Neo-Latin poets was the
short-lived sixteenth century Dutchman, Johannes Secundus (1511-
1535). Although his amatory Elegiae and his extraordinary cycle of
nineteen Basia frequently reveal that his masters were Catullus, the
Latin elegists, and the early Italian Neo-Latin poets, in particular Pon-
tano and Sannazzaro, Secundus has no equal in the sensual use of the
soul-in-the-kiss conceit.^ Basium X, for example, after enumerating
the various kisses that may be given (upon the eyes, cheeks, neck, and
shoulders), speaks of the mouth and tongue kiss as surpassing all
others in its marvelous effects of first mingling and then bringing about
an exchange of souls. During such a kiss the lovers experience the
deathlike swoon of love's ecstasy:

Seu labris querulis titubantem sugere linguam,

Et miscere duas juncta per ora animas,

Inque peregrinum diffundere corpus utramque,

Languet in extreme cum moribundus amor.*'

Secundus was writing after the publication of the Book of the
Courtier, and Castiglione's idea that during the kiss each body has two

■' “While I stole a sweet kiss from you against your will, chaste Neaera, I, un-
aware, left my soul upon your lips, and for long soul-less — since it did not come
back by itself and even a small delay might be fatal — I sent my heart to seek my
soul; but my heart, captured in turn by your lovely eyes, has never returned from
there. Wherefore, chaste Neaera, if from that sweet kiss I had not derived a flame
that sustains me without my soul, the final day would have dawned for your
unhappy lover, believe me, when I stole that kiss from you."

*' "Or sucking the trembling tongue with plaintively desiring lips and mingling
two souls through united mouths, and diffusing each soul into the other's body,
love, while dying, grows faint at last." The Love Poems of Johannes Secundus, A
Revised Latin Text with an English Verse Translation, ed. and trans. F. A. Wright
(London, 1930), p. 72.

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souls, while the two bodies are themselves, as it were, infused with and
animated by one composite soul, could be the source of a similar con-
ceit that concludes Secundus' Basium XIII:

Pars animae, mea vita, tuae hoc in corpore vivit
Et dilapsuros sustinet articulos;

Quae tamen impatiens in pristina iura reverti
Saepe per arcanas nititur aegra vias
Ac nisi dilecta per te foveatur ab aura,
lam conlabentes deserit articulos.

Ergo age, labra meis innecte tenacia labris,

Assidueque duos spiritus unus alat.

Donee, inexpleti post taedia sera furoris,

Unica de gemino corpore vita fluet.*

But if the image was at all inspired by Castiglione's words, it has been
bereft of any spiritual veneer, for Secundus quite unabashedly and
deliberately utilizes the soul-in-the-kiss conceit in order to give ex-
pression to the purely voluptuary delights of osculation. This is evi-
denced in another of his poems (Elegia, I, 5 ) which contains the image
of the soul being sucked up by a kiss and, again, the concept of an
exchange whereby each of the lovers lives by virtue of the other's soul
or breath. Again, however, the sensual note is so intense that one
hesitates to speak of it as an example of the psychic exchange or
transformation of lovers.®

But another of Secundus' poems which needs to be mentioned
because of the many imitators it was to have is Basium 11. Besides its
conceit of the lovers clinging together in one long eternal kiss, the poem
is important for its development of the theme of the lovers dying to-
gether glued to that kiss and then passing into an Elysium for lovers
who remain forever together in a love that is stronger than death. The
poet and his lady will be especially honored by the dwellers of that
blissful afterlife.® The theme of an Elysium for lovers derives ulti-
mately from the classic poets (cf. Tibullus, I, 3 ), but one wonders

’ "A part of your soul, my life, lives in this body and sustains my limbs [that
are] on the point of dissolution. But it, unable to bear more, often strives, poor
thing, to return to its former kingdom by hidden ways, and were it not warmed
by you with your dear breath, it would leave my collapsing limbs. Come, therefore,
and join your clinging lips to mine and let one breath-spirit continually nourish
both of us, until after the late weariness of unassuaged passion, a single life flows
from a twin body." Ibid., p. 84.

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

whether Secundus was not deliberately contrasting his kiss unto Ely-
sium with the kiss unto Hell of Paolo and Francesca. Secundus, how-
ever, was not one to restrict the possibilities of the soul-kiss conceit,
and in still another poem (Elegia, I, 3) he prays that even in old age he
may know the titillating sensation of kisses. Then, when it is time for
his soul to depart from his body, may his soul come forth in kissing
his lady; haply it will be sustained by her lips where it will prefer to
linger wantonly rather than make its way to Elysium.^

The popularity of Secundus' Basia was such as to create a vogue
for poems on kisses to which both vernacular and Neo-Latin writers
contributed. But there is little variety among the Neo-Latin poets who
subsequently used the soul-kiss conceit. They derive the image pri-
marily from Secundus, although Pontano and Marullo are certainly to
be counted among their sources. In addition to this, a familiarity with
the Platonic epigram and its elaboration in Aulus Gellius was now also
at work. Invariably the image is given a strictly erotic and even sa-
lacious value. This is so even when the poet is also drawing quite
clearly on Ficinian or other Neoplatonic ideas as well. Such, for ex-
ample, is the case of Sir Robert Aytoun (1570-1638), a Scottish writer
of amatory complaints who deserves to be remembered here. In singing
the praise of the passionate tongue kiss, Aytoun claims that it is the
vehicle whereby souls are exchanged, and he adds the thought that in
this way the lover lives in the body of the beloved and vice versa.® But
it is quite likely that Aytoun was also influenced by vernacular poets
of the Renaissance, for he was writing at a time when these amatory
images had become almost indispensable and inevitable commonplaces
in the love poetry of Italy, France, and England.

Italian Authors: The Kiss and Death as a Sexual Metaphor

The earliest instances of the soul-in-the-kiss conceit among the
Renaissance vernacular poets of Italy are by Serafino Aquilano (1466—
1500). Since Serafino was a court poet, it is not surprising to find him
giving an air of witty if erotic gallantry to the image in one of his
strambotti. Having stolen a kiss from his offended lady, the poet as-
sures her that she may take her revenge without protest from him. In
kissing, the poet's soul was so attracted by the sweetness of her lips
that his soul was ready to take flight. If she would but grant him a

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THE RENAISSANCE-BAROQUE ACE

second kiss, his soul would surely come wholly forth. This, of course, is
to die, and his lady might well account herself satisfied with his death.
The poet, we know, would like nothing better than so to die in ecstasy
on a kiss:

Incolpa, donna, amor, se troppo io volsi
Aggiungendo alia tua la bocca mia.

Se pur punir voi di quel ch'io tolsi.

Fa che concesso replicar mi sia:

Che tal dolceza in quelli labri accolsi,

Che '1 spirto mio fu per fugirsi via.

So che al secondo tocco uscira fora ;

Basta ti de', che per tal fallo io mora.'"

The fame of Serafino in his own time and in the sixteenth century
was so widespread that we are apt to be amazed by it today. But our
contemporary skepticism must not prevent us from recognizing his
extraordinary influence as a transmitter of conceits and rhetorical de-
vices. Hence the second example of his use of the soul-kiss theme de-
serves to be made known here, especially in view of the accompanying
erotic motifs that are brought into play.

Quando per dar al mio languir conforto
Tua bocca con la mia digno toccarse,

Poco manco che io non restasse morto,

Che in su le labre mie I'anima apparse;

Et se piu stava, e ben non era accorto,

Intrava in voi per mai piu separarse.

Novo caso era esser di vita privo
Et pur dentro da voi rimaner vivo."

First to be remarked here is the traditional medieval motif of the poet
seeking health or balm for his lovesickness in his lady's kiss. But this

^ “Lay the blame on love, lady, if I dared too much in joining my mouth to
yours. But if you wish to punish me for what I took, let me be allowed to do it
again. For I plucked such sweetness from those lips that my spirit was ready to
take flight, so that at a second touch it would come forth; it should suffice you
that through such a fault, I die." Die Strambolti des Serafino DalV Aquila, ed.
Barbara Bauer-Formiconi (Munich, 1967), p. 318.

" "When, to comfort my languishing, your mouth deigned to touch mine, I was
close to being left for dead, for my soul appeared on my lips, and if it stayed there
longer and I had not been careful, it would have entered into you never to be
separated from you again. A wonderful thing it would have been to be deprived of
life and yet still remain alive within you." Die Stramhotti, pp. 317-318.

197

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

is followed by the idea that rather than being restored the poet came
close to death — a welcome one, it seems — for again his soul was drawn
from within him to his lips. Finally, we meet with the idea that had
the kiss lasted a bit longer, the poet's soul would have passed over
and lodged itself within the lady's bosom, with the marvelous result
[novo caso] that the poet dying unto himself would continue to live in
the beloved. The latter thought, we know, is a characteristic Ficinian
motif, but the fact that Serafino has worked it into the kiss conceit
may mean that he was also adapting it directly from the poem in Aulus
Gellius. Given their great contemporary popularity, Serfino's two
strambotti on the kiss may well have had an influence on the Basia of
Johannes Secundus as on vernacular poets.

In Ariosto's Orlando Furioso there is a well-known stanza (VII,
29) describing the sexual embrace between the lovers Ruggiero and
Alcina. It contains an apparent allusion to the soul-kiss conceit, fol-
lowed by a pun upon the lingual kiss. The poet would leave the telling
of their joy to the lovers, who could be expected to have the required
eloquence since, in kissing, each was in possession of two tongues:

Non cosi strettamente edera preme
Pianta ove intorno abbarbicata s'abbia.

Come si stringon li due amanti insieme,

Cogliendo de lo spirto in su le labbia
Suave fior, qual non produce seme
Indo o sabeo ne I'odorata sabbia,

Del gran piacer ch'avean, lor dicer tocca;

Che spesso avean piu d'una lingua in bocca.°

The reference to the plucking of the sweet flower of the spirit from
the lips may be an echo from the verses in Aulus Gellius. For the rest,
the verses are a superior rendition of a stanza from Boiardo's Orlando
Innamoratod

Also to be remembered in connection with Ariosto's poem is the
beautiful scene where Isabella kisses into herself the vital spirit
(or soul-breath) of her dying lover Zerbino:

° "Ivy does not press the plant on which it is entwined as tightly as the two
lovers clasped themselves together, plucking on their lips the spirit's sweet flower,
such as is not produced by Indian or Arab seed in perfumed sands. It is for them
[the lovers] to tell of the great pleasure that they felt for they often had more
than one tongue in their mouths." Cf. Ariosto, Capitoli, VIII, vss. 13-15; 22-24.

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Cosi dicendo, le reliquie estreme
De lo spirto vital che morte fura,

Va ricogliendo con le labra meste.

Fin ch'una minima aura ve ne reste.*’

Like Tristan, Zerbino is content to die in his lady's arms. So too, like
Iseult, Isabella wishes to die with her lover; unlike what happens in
the Tristan story, Zerbino dissuades her from doing so by appealing
to faith in God's succour. But besides this general similarity with the
medieval romance, one can find a distant source for the particular
adaptation of the soul-kiss conceit in the old Roman belief that the
soul-breath which was expired from the mouth at the moment of dying
could be captured by a survivor. As Franz Cumont wrote: "When
Virgil shows us Dido's sister, at the time of the queen's suicide, re-
ceiving the last breath which floats on her dying lips, he is lending a
Roman custom to the Carthaginians, the custom of the last kiss, which,
according to a widely held belief, could catch on its way the soul which
was escaping into the atmosphere."** In addition to the famous
Virgilian passage {Aeneid, IV, 684-685), the thought is to be found
in Ovid (Mef., VIII, 860-861) and in Seneca's tragedy Hercules
Oetaeus (1340-1342) where Alcmena desires to receive through her
mouth the spirit of her dying son Hercules. In the case of Ariosto,
however, this image has become eroticized by being placed in the con-
text of a lover's death in the lap of his mistress. In this respect it is
more in keeping with the scene from Bion's Lament for Adonis (I, 43)
where Venus in fact desires a last kiss from the dying Adonis in order
that she might suck in and preserve within herself her lover's spirit
(see Introduction).

We have already pointed out that it is after the promulgation of
the kiss as a Neoplatonic sacrament in the Book of the Courtier that
the soul kiss overruns amatory verse. The examples to follow are from
writers who knew or could have known Castiglione's key passage,
although not all apply the image to a description of pure or Platonic
love. One who does so is Benedetto Varchi (1503-1563), in his time
a much respected theorist of love and poetry. When he himself wished
to describe oscular sensation, he was mindful of the courtly and

^ "With these words she proceeds to gather with grieving lips the last remnants
of the vital spirit that death is stealing as long as the slightest breath remains."
XXIV, 82.

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Neoplatonic dictum that a chaste lover desires nothing beyond the
kiss. This is because the kiss brings the true lover the greatest gift he
can hope for — an exchange of souls with the beloved:

Quel ch'io sentii non so ridir: so bene
Ch'io lasciai Talma e ricevetti invece
Cosa che avanza in terra ogni altro bene.

O santissimo Amor, Tultima spene
£ il baciar casto in te, ch'altro non lece
A cortese amator, ne piu conviene.'*

The poet Orsatto Giustinian seems to have written the sestet of
a sonnet, in which he begs a kiss, fresh from a reading of Castiglione.
In it we find Neoplatonic amatory conventions like the kiss regarded
as a reward granted to chaste lovers and the idea that the desire to
kiss derives from the yearning of souls to unite :

Le dolci labbra (don ch'Amor destina
A' piu casti desir) Tanima brama
Per unirsi a la vostra omai vicina:

Ne voi punger devria men calda brama
D'unir, provando gioia alta e divina,

L'alma vostra a la mia, che tanto Tama.''

Such "Neoplatonizing," needless to say, is not always to be taken
seriously when found in the poets. Giustinian, for example, is simply
being amorous and gallant in the style and language of his day. The
same poet could and did just as easily write uninhibited sensual love
poetry, as his fine sonnet "Godianci amando, o mia diletta Flora"
reveals.

For the most part, in fact, the Italian poets using the soul-kiss
image and other "mystic" conceits reduce them to sensual terms. At
the same time, these amatory topoi are often colored with the
Petrarchan preciosity characteristic of the Cinquecento, an inevitable
enough circumstance given the fusion and even confusion of Platonism

"I do not know how to describe what 1 felt; I do know that I left my soul and
in return received something that is greater than all other good on earth. O most
blessed Love, whose ultimate hope is the chaste kiss, beyond which nothing is
lawful or fitting for a courtly lover." In Lirici del Cinquecento, ed. D. Ponchiroli
(Turin, 1958), p. 241.

*■ "The soul yearns for the sweet lips (gift that Love reserves for the most chaste
desires), in order to be united to your [soul] ever near; nor should you feel a less
intense desire for union — tasting deep and divine joy — between your soul and
mine that loves it so." Lirici del Cinquecento, p. 165.

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THE RENAISSANCE-BAROQUE ACE

and Petrarchism in Renaissance poetry. This will be noted in the
following verses by Girolamo Parabosco (1524-1557), in which the
poet describes the state of ecstasy that would be his in kissing his lady.

Quei bei coralli, anzi que' bei rubini,

Che chiudon quelle perle Oriental!;

Falli a la bocca mia, falli vicini,

Mentre punto e'l mio cor da mille strali
Et mentre I'alma gia sopra i confini.

Per uscir fuor si sta, battendo I'ali,

L'alma che tocca da quei labri bei
Lieta sen volara fra mezzo a Dei.®

Here are the precious trappings such as coral and rubies and Oriental
pearls to indicate the lips and teeth of the lady. Here too is the ancient
but perennial image of the amorous heart wounded by Love's arrows.
But the soul-in-the-kiss image is presented in a way that is interesting
enough to merit a brief elucidation. Even before the kiss, the poet feels
his soul, attracted by the jewel-like mouth of the beloved, beating its
wings at his lips from within as it seeks an egress. This introduces a
metaphor of death, for the conceit of the soul's wings is clearly de-
pendent upon the old image of the soul as a bird, which was especially
common in representations of the soul departing by way of the mouth
at the moment of death, usually to make its flight to the abode of the
blessed. Hence the poet is saying that he is dying from desire or is
close to a deathlike lover's swoon. If his lips (where his soul lies)
were to be touched by his lady's lips, his soul would then be released
and fly happily to the gods. All of which is the author's way of saying
that his lady's kisses enrapture him to a Paradise of sensual delights.

More in keeping with the Fescennine vein of Neo-Latin poetry
is Giovanni Mazzarelli who adapted the themes of the soul kiss and the
transformation of lovers to a context of a wholly lascivious nature,
although the verses are not without a redeeming touch of wit:

I dolci basci e replicati spesso,

Mille tronchi, amorosi e brevi detti,

Tenersi i volti e corpi insieme stretti,

® "These fair corals, or rather, these fair rubies that enclose those Oriental
pearls — bring them to my mouth, bring them near, while my heart is pierced by
a thousand darts, and while my soul, already at its bounds, is ready to issue forth,
beating its wings, my soul that if touched by your fair lips, will joyfully fly into
the midst of the gods." Quattro libri delle lettere amorose di M. Girolamo Para-
bosco (Venice, 1607), Libro secondo, pp. 172-173.

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Suggersi de le labbra il core espresso:

Un languir dolce e un mormorar sommesso,

Un star dubioso in qual de' nostri petti
Sian I'alme proprie, e 'n gli ultimi diletti
Non saper de nui dui qual sia se stesso.*

This seems to have been written in the teeth of Ficino's protest that
the union and mutual indwelling of lovers can in no way be effected
by a contact between bodies. But if at first the verses appear to be a
travesty of the Neoplatonic theme of psychic exchange, in point of
fact they effectively describe the character of the sexual ecstasy of
lovers: the sharing of pleasure and the sensation of the fusion of the
pair into one with an ensuing loss of identity of the self as each feels
he has become the other.

With this we may turn to a particularly ribald example of the
soul-in-the-kiss by the notorious and brilliant Pietro Aretino. In
erotic literature, as we have seen, the expression "to die" had assumed
the value of a sexual metaphor signifying the culmination of the love
act. In a similar way the expiration of the soul in a kiss was a metaphor
of the death of the self at the height of ecstasy. In the following prose
passage from the Ragionamenti, the description of the sexual embrace
is brought to a close with the kiss conceit used to signify precisely the
moment of this sexual dying:

Gia i lor petti si congiungono si fermamente insieme che i cuori di tutti
e due si sbasciarono con uguale affetto. In quello essi si beccano
dolcemente gli spiriti corsi ne le labbra per diletto, e beendosigli,
gustavano le dolcezze del cielo, e i supradetti spiriti fecero segno di alle-
grezza, mentre gli ahi, ahi, gli oime, oime; e, vita, e anima, il cuor mio, il
muoio, lo aspetta che io fo, finirono. Onde cadde questo e quella
lentamente, spirandosi I'un I'altro in bocca I'anima, con un sospiro.”

"Sweet and oft-repeated kisses, a thousand broken loving and brief phrases;
holding faces and bodies tightly together; sucking from each other's tips the
heart's essence: a sweet languor and a subdued murmuring; a being in doubt as
to which of our breasts our own souls are in; and in the ultimate delights not
knowing which of us two is oneself." Lirica d'amore italiana, ed. S. Quasimodo
(Milano, 1957), p. 379.

“ "Their breasts were now joined so firmly together that the hearts of both of
them kissed one another with equal affection. Whereupon they fed themselves
gently on each other's spirit that had rushed to their lips because of the pleasure,
and drinking them [the spirits] in, they tasted the sweet pleasures of heaven, and
the aforesaid spirits gave signs of happiness during the 'ohs' and 'ahs'; and 'life,'
soul of mine, 'my heart,' 'Tm dying,' 'wait for me' were over. Whereupon both
he and she sank slowly down, expiring their souls into one another with a sigh."
Piacevoli e capricciosi ragionamenti, ed. A. P. Stella (Milan, 1944), p. 186.

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THE RENAISSANCE-BAROQUE AGE

Without doubt, Aretino took a satanic delight in so desecrating
the soul-in-the-kiss conceit, for he was very much aware of its role as
a Neoplatonic love sacrament, which he also parodied in a comedy en-
titled II filosofo. The philosopher (whose name is nothing less than
Plataristotile), for all his metaphysical acuity, is deceived by his wife,
who has the following exchange with her lover after being greeted
by him with a kiss:

POLIDORO: Ho basciato la vostra anima corsavi tra i labbri.

TESSA: Et io il vostro spirito apparso in mezzo de la bocca vostra.''

Among Italian writers, the supreme virtuosi of the poetry of kiss-
ing are Torquato Tasso, Battista Guarini, and Giovanni Battista
Marino; in their verses, where kisses (of all varieties) know no end,
the soul kiss occupies a particularly important place. The conceit was
especially suited to the imagination of Tasso and his inimitable vein of
elegiac sensuality. We may note it first in the following madrigal,
where the poet, finding himself left with but a part of his soul after
a kiss, entreats the beloved either to return the part she has enrap-
tured from him or else draw from him the rest. It goes without saying
that to do either requires another kiss:

Baciami dolcemente.

Ahi! che la debil vita

Recidi e n' hai gran parte a me rapita.

Crudel, perche mi struggi?

Rendi a la parte ancisa
L'alma scevra e divisa,

O I'avanzo di lei m'invola e suggi."'

It is typical of the declining age of the Italian Renaissance and
especially of Tasso that even poetry in the manner of a courtier-like
gallantry is often permeated with a languorous sensuality of a
melancholy hue. Such a sensibility permeates the madrigal just quoted
as it does these verses from a bucolic sonnet where we find Aminta,
clasped in the arms of his beloved, offering her his soul expiring from
him in sweet kisses:

''"Polidoro: I have kissed your soul as it rushed between your lips. Tessa: And
I your spirit as it appeared in the middle of your mouth." Teatro italiano antico,
IX (Milan, 1809), 542.

"Kiss me gently. Alas ! for you cut short my feeble life and have snatched the
greater part of it from me. Cruel one, why do you destroy me? Return to the
tormented part the separated and divided soul, or suck and steal from me the
rest of it." Lirici del Cinquecento, ed. Carlo Bo (Milan, 1945), p. 391.

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Cogliete, anima mia, quest'alma ch'io

Vi spiro in braccio. Ahi, che mi giunge al core,

A1 core, ahi lasso, un venen dolce e rio !
lo '1 sento, ohime: da queste labbra amore
Per troncar la radice al viver mio
In dolcissimi baci il manda fore.’^

This, of course, is yet another example of the voluptuous death of the
lover. So, too, in the Gerusalemme liberata, Armida's kisses are such
as to cause Rinaldo's death-ecstasy by drawing his soul from him
into the enchantress's own body:

Or I'alma fugge

E 'n lei trapassa peregrina.^

Tasso is the great poet of the death of heroic and pastoral lovers.
Invariably an aura of sensuality pervades his representations of death;
or perhaps it would be better to say that in his romantic and elegiac
vision, love always walks in the shadow of death. For him love's fulfill-
ment is inseparable from death whether the latter is metaphorical or
literal. The most famous case of this, as every reader will agree, is
the description {Cer. lib., XII) of the fatal combat between Tancredi
and Clorinda. No one can miss the parallel between the literal wound-
ing and death of Clorinda and the metaphorical death of the act of
love. There is no kiss in that episode, but elsewhere in the great epic
we find the poet applying the soul-in-the-kiss image to another scene
of a lover's death when Erminia discovers the wounded Tancredi and,
believing him to be dead, kisses him in the hope that she will be able
to exhale her own soul upon his lips. Her wish, however, is not that
she may in this way revive her beloved, as so often is the case in the
poetry of kissing, but rather that her own soul may be sent from
Tancredi's lips to follow the path taken by his soul:

Lecito sia ch'ora ti stringa, e poi

Versi lo spirto mio fra i labri tuoi.

Raccogli tu I'anima seguace;

Drizzala tu dove la tua sen gio.^

^ "Pluck, my soul, this spirit (soul) that I breathe to you in your arms. Alas, how
my heart, my heart, alas, is filled with sweet and evil poison! I feel it, ah me! from
these lips love sends it forth in sweetest kisses to cut the root of my life." Opere
di Torquato Tasso, II, ed. B. Sozzi (Turin, 1956), 90.

-'"'Now the soul takes flight and like a pilgrim passes into her." XVI, 19.

^ "Let me be allowed to clasp you now, and then to pour my spirit between your
lips. Gather up my following soul, guide it whither yours has gone." XIX, 108:7-8;
XIX, 109:1-2.

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Erminia's wish, we see, is like that of heroines before her from Thisbe
and Iseult to Isabella: to die with a kiss and so be joined with the be-
loved ever after.

Of the many Tassian examples of the soul-kiss image connected
with the theme of the love-death, the most significant and beautiful
one occurs at the beginning of canto II of the Liberata, in an episode
charged with a mixture of religious and sexual imagery. In Jerusalem,
where Christ suffered his mortal anguish (“la 've Cristo soffri mortale
affanno," I, 8o:8), a chaste and stately virgin, Sofronia, is about to
die the death of a martyr for the faith. By order of the Saracen ruler,
she is to be burned at the stake. When the youth Olindo seeks to win
her freedom by generously claiming responsibility for the act for
which she has been condemned, the order is given for him to be tied
to the same stake. It is at the moment of their imminent death (it mat-
ters little that they are eventually released) that Olindo makes known
to Sofronia the extent of his love and desire. Though he could not
share her bed, he will be her consort at the funeral pyre. His pity is
not for himself but for her, since he will after all have the satisfaction
of dying beside her. Yet his bliss would be complete and his martyrdom
sweeter if, instead of being bound thus back to back, they could face
one another; then in a kiss he could expire his soul into her, and she
dying with him at the same time could breathe into him her last sigh:

Ed oh mia sorte avventurosa a pieno!

Oh fortunati miei dolci martiri!

S'impetrero che giunto seno a seno
L'anima mia ne la tua bocca spiri :

E venendo tu meco a un tempo meno
In me fuor mandi gli ultimi sospiri.®

Olindo, it is true, is a martyr for a love that is not Christ's cause.
His words are a confession of sensual love and a vision of sexual ful-
fillment; however, unlike many examples by writers punning on the
sexual connotation of dying, they convey no prurient suggestion.
On the other hand, the sincerity and the intensity of his desire and
of his willingness to be love's holocaust is such that his passion can
be said to merge into that mystical yearning to die and pass into the

®"And oh, completely blessed [would be] my lot! How fortunate my sweet
martyrdom! If I could be granted that, joined breast to breast, I might breathe my
soul into your mouth; and you, dying at the same moment with me, might send
into me your final sighs." II, 55:1-6.

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

beloved which is characteristic of the deepest experience of sexual as
of spiritual and divine loved^

Without being facetious or sacrilegious, one may compare
Olindo's vision with a madrigal in which Tasso plays upon the theme
of the dying of lovers to make of it throughout a sexual metaphor with-
in which the expiration of the soul-breath in the kiss is used to signify
the culmination of the sexual act. The motif is thus much like what
we found in Aretino in idea and imagery, although the tone is withal
more lyrical;

Nel dolce seno de la bella Clori

Tirsi, che del suo fine

Gia languendo sentia I'ore vicine,

Tirsi, levando gli occhi

Ne' languidetti rai del suo desio,

— Anima, disse, omai beata mori. —

Quand'ella — Ohime! ben mio,

Aspetta, — sospiro dolce anelando. —

Ahi! crudo, ir dunque a morte

Senza me pensi? io teco, e non me 'n pento,

Morir promisi, e gia moro, e gia sento
Le mortali mie scorte

Perche Tuna e I'altr'alma insieme scocchi. —

Si stringe egli soave e sol risponde
Con meste voci a le voci gioconde.

Oh fortunati! I'un entro spirando
Ne la bocca de I'altra, una dolce ombra
Di morte gli occhi lor tremanti ingombra:

E SI sentian, mancando i rotti accent!,

Agghiacciar tra le labbra i bad ardenti.’’

’’ “In fair Clori's sweet breast, Thyrsis, already failing, felt the hour of his end
to be near; Thyrsis, raising his eyes to the languid beams of his desire, said: “My
soul, die blest at last.' Whereat she: 'Woe is me! Dear friend, wait for me,' she
sighed, gasping softly. 'Alas! cruel one, will you then go to death without me? I
promised to die with you and have no regrets. I am already dying, already feel
my mortal escorts, so that both souls may depart together.' So he clasps her gently
and replies only with mournful words to her words of joy. Oh happy [pair] ! One
expiring into the other's mouth, a sweet shadow of death darkens their trembling
eyes; and as their broken voices fail, they feel their burning kisses congeal upon
their lips." Opere di T. Tasso, II, ed. B. Sozzi (Turin, 1956), 92. As for the erotic
death motif in Tasso's poem, there is a version in a madrigal by Battista Guarini,
which, however, does without the soul kiss. Guarini's madrigal (“Tirsi morir
volea"), which was often attributed to Tasso, is perhaps more nicely if frivolously
turned than Tasso's own and was to enjoy the greater popularity in the seven-
teenth century when it was translated or imitated by several French and English
authors, most notably by John Dryden in his song “WhiFst Alexis lay prest." See

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THE RENAISSANCE-BAROQUE AGE

There was a time — for more than a century — when Battista
Guarini's Pastor fido was the most widely quoted book of Europe. It
is so little read today, however, that we are likely to smile at rather
than try to understand Cardinal Bellarmine's remark to Guarini that
the play was more pernicious to Christianity than were the Lutherans,
although this was something more than a boutade. Indeed, both
Platonic love and Christian order are seductively subverted in this
pastoral by a sensualistic immanentism where love appears in Lucretian
style as a thoroughly natural and all-pervasive force driving things
to seek sexual union. In this context (Act II, scene i) Guarini offers
us one of the most exquisite renderings of the soul-in-the-kiss conceit.
The "shepherd" Mirtillo has been expatiating to his friend Ergasto on
the delicious sensations of taste, smell, and touch that he experienced
when he kissed the nymph Amarilli. His madrigalesque peroration
terminates with a description of the climactic ecstatic swoon in which
the lover's entire life was reduced to the enervating sensation of the
kiss itself:

Su queste labbra, Ergasto,

Tutta sen venne allor I'anima mia;

E la mia vita, chiusa
In cosi breve spazio.

Non era che un bacio,

Onde restar le membra.

Quasi senza vigor, tremanti e fioche.'

Chandler B. Beall, "A Quaint Conceit from Guarini to Dryden," in Modern Lan-
guage Notes, LXIV (November, 1949), 461-468.

In Dryden's own Don Sebastian we read the thought "How can we better dye
than close embrac'd / Sucking each other's souls while we expire," which seems
to be inspired by Olindo's words in the Gerusalemme liherata.

'"On these lips, Ergasto, all my soul came forth then; and my life, contained
in so small a space, was no more than a kiss. Wherefore my limbs remained almost
without strength, trembling and weak."

Guarini's conceit is not entirely original, for something of it is found earlier in
a madrigal by Gian Francesco Fabri, who speaks of his life being enclosed within
the lips of his lady:

Dolci basci soavi,

Che quella parte, ond'io

Vivo, et respiro, hor mi togliete, hor date,

Candide perle amate,

Ch'accogliete tra voi lo spirto mio,

Et voi labra rosate

Dolci amorose chiavi

Ch'in poco spatio mia vita chiudete.

Rime di diversi nobili huomini et eccellenii poeti nella lingua Thoscana (Venice,
1547)/ Libro secondo, fol. 60'°.

207

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

In view of the fact that Guarini appears in Romei's dialogue as
the expounder of the spiritual Neoplatonic kiss (see chapter 5), the
thoroughly sensualistic interpretation accorded the motif in his own
work is all the more suggestive; and it is a matter of considerable in-
terest that in his commentary to the play Guarini explicated his kiss
passage in terms of the psychology of his time in order to justify the
image of the soul being on the lips and in the kiss. His discourse
amounts to a scientific definition of the physical ecstasy or ravissement
he was describing: "Although the soul cannot be separated from any
part of the body, nevertheless, it seems experientially that it may be
in that part whither desire carries it, and therefore he says that it was
wholly in that kiss and wholly in that mouth; and as in evidence of
this, the other parts of the body remained faint, as if they had been
abandoned by it [the soul], and, as he says, trembling. There can be
no real separation of the soul from the body while one is of this life,
but experientially it seems that the soul betakes itself to where it is
led by desire or love. In this case desire has carried the soul to the
lover's lips, or rather to the kiss itself; hence the rest of the body
appears trembling and lifeless. This, we note, is old psychology indeed,
and still valid. It is exactly what we found in the medieval Christian
formula of ecstatic love: "Puto, anima mea, quod verius es ubi amas
quam ubi animas." But here, too, Dante — an invaluable and inevitable
touchstone for the expression of the amoristic psychology of any
period — impinges upon our mind. How can we not think that in
Guarini's description of a lover trembling in an ecstatic kiss, Fran-
cesca's terse, dramatic, and compelling hendecasyllable — "La bocca
mi bacio tutto tremante" — has been transposed into another key and
another (totally hedonistic) ethos.*®

Giambattista Marino, the Italian baroque virtuoso, aspired to
outdo all other poets in all themes. Such an ambition was bound to
include in its sphere the theme of the kiss, which Marino perhaps more
than any other poet, including Johannes Secundus, was to elaborate
ad nauseam. It is no wonder then that the particular conceit of the soul
kiss recurs with high frequency in his verse ; and, as may be expected,
with Marino the image is used in the most venereal contexts. It is
symptomatic that one of his best-known poems — it is the poem that
catapulted him to an early and massive popularity — is precisely the

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THE RENAISSANCE-BAROQUE AGE

Canzone del bad (beginning "O bad avventurosi") in which he refers
wittily but salaciously to the kissing lovers as having two “souls" in
one mouth, “E piu d'un'alma in una bocca asconde," a pun easily
enough understood on its own, but which is the more appreciated by
recalling Ariosto's tonguing couple (see above).

The Canzone describes an interminable oscular orgy in which,
among other things, the lover's heart and life is bandied to and fro
by the kisses of his mistress :

Alfin col bacio il cor mi porge e prende
E la vita col cor mi fura e rende.**

But the poet is led finally by those kisses to that pleasure which fuses
souls and grafts bodies together:

Di bacio in bacio a quel piacer mi desta,

Che I'alme insieme allaccia e i corpi innesta.®

It is then that the poet's soul, drawn and overcome by so irresistible a
delight, comes in a sigh to its passageway — the poet's mouth — ready
to escape. Fortunately, it is met and stopped by his lady's soul. But
a happy "death" ensues nonetheless, as his soul drowns in the sweet
"shower" of joy that is infused into him from the lovely one's ruby
lips:

Vinta allor dal diletto

Con un sospir se 'n viene

L'anima al varco, e '1 proprio albergo oblia;

Ma con pietoso affetto

La 'ncontra ivi e ritiene

L'anima arnica, che s'oppon tra via;

E 'n lei, ch'arde e desia
Gia languida e smarrita,

D'un vasel di rubin tal pioggia versa
Di gioia, che sommersa
In quel piacer gentile,

Cui presso ogni altro e vile,

** "Finally with the kiss she gives and takes my heart, and with the heart steals
and restores my life."

® "From kiss to kiss she awakens me to that delight which binds souls and grafts
bodies together."

209

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Baciando I'altra, ch'a baciar la 'nvita,

Alfin ne more, e quel morire e vita.*

Kissing the soul that has invited it to kiss^ the lover's soul dies but
finds its life in that voluptuous death.

In another canzone which is a lesson in philematology (Bad dold,
et amorosi), Marino borrowed from Guarini the remarkable conceit of
the lover being transformed not into the beloved but into the kiss it-
self, as an expression of the hedonistic principle of reducing life to
pure sensation. The speaker is Thyrsis whose heart has been tossed
between death and life in the kisses of Phyllis :

Tanto diletto io sento
Mentre bacio, e ribacio,

Che per farmi contento
A pien quand'io ti bacio
Trasformarmi vorrei tutto in un bacio.®

Phyllis's desire for sensual delights is equal to that of Thyrsis, and
in a literal rage of voluptuousness she replies that in the kiss, souls
no less than mouths can kiss and bite one another. The image may
strike us as grotesque, but it is not without efficacy and not without
foundation in the anthropophagic character of the kiss :

Qualhor con dolce rabbia
Bocca si bacia, o morde,

Su le baciate labbra

* “Vanquished then by pleasure, my soul comes with a sigh to the passageway,
and forgets its own dwelling place; but with compassion, my lady's soul, putting
itself in the way, meets it and keeps it there. And into it [my soul], that now
languid and bewildered burns and desires, she pours such a shower of joy from a
ruby cup that, drowned in that gentle pleasure compared to which all else is base,
and kissing the other soul that invites it to kiss, finally dies, and that death is life."
lAarino e i Niarinisti^ ed. G. Ferrero (Milan, 1954), pp. 354— 355.

® "I feel such great delight while I kiss and kiss again, that to become completely
happy when I kiss you I would wish to be transformed entirely into a kiss." La lira,
rime del Cavaliere Marino (Venice, 1678), p. 262. Along with Guarini's passage,
Marino s conceit that the lover be fully transformed into the kiss may be con-
trasted with a Neoplatonizing conceit in Michelangelo's sonnet "Ben posson gli
occhi mie presso e lontano ' where because it is the eyes that enjoy the beauty of
the beloved the poet concludes with a prayer to be transformed wholly into an
eye so that every part of him will be able to enjoy her:

Deh, se tu puo' nel del quante tra noi.

Fa' del mie corpo tutto un occhio solo;

Ne fie poi parte in me che non ti goda.

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Van con voglia Concorde
A mordersi, a baciar I'anime ingorde.^

But where this and like amatory conceits are most cloyingly ex-
ploited by Marino is in the extraordinary love scene between Adonis
and Venus in the Adone (VIII, stanzas 116-149), which is the last
spectacular effort of the Renaissance-Baroque world to represent nature
in pagan sensualistic terms. In making her invitation to Adonis, Venus
employs such familiar commonplaces as love's power to unite two
souls or two hearts in one, the psychic exchange of lovers' hearts, and
the dying unto the self so as to live in the beloved :

Fansi in virtu d'un'amorosa fede
Due alme un'alma e son due cori un core.

Cangia il cor, cangia I'alma albergo e sede.

In altrui vive, in se medesma more.‘

But the invitation soon passes from a spiritual to a carnal level.
If there is an exchange and union of hearts, why not then of bodies too?

Se ti prendi il mio core e '1 tuo mi dai,

Perche de' corpi un corpo anco non fai?^

Love is the maker or inspirer of the kiss, the heart distils it, the
lips effect it, but it is the soul more than the mouth that enjoys it. The
kiss couples souls, but the context is anything but Neoplatonic or
mystical. Indeed, the soul kiss is at the same time the lingual kiss for
Marino. Hearts and tongues are exchanged simultaneously, and the
sexual orgasm of the lover is what is intended when it is said that the
kiss incites the soul to die. But clever lovers hold back their death
until both can expire together:

^ "Whenever with sweet frenzy mouths kiss or bite each other, upon the kissed
lips greedy souls come with mutual desire to bite and kiss."

'■ "Through the power of an amorous faith two souls are made one soul. Two
hearts are one heart. The heart changes, the soul changes dwelling place and seat,
lives in another and dies in itself." ii6;a-6.

^ "If you take my heart and give me yours, why do you not then make one body
of our bodies?" 119:7-8. Compare the following verses from Robert Browning's
The Ring and the Book, where the same casuistry appears:

Because of our souls' yearning that we meet

And mix in soul through flesh, which yours and mine

Wear and impress, and make their visible selves.

All which means, for the love of you and me.

Let us become one flesh, being one soul !

(VII, 774-778)

211

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Treman gli spirti infra i piu vivi ardori
Quando il bacio a morir I'anima spinge.

Mutan bocca le lingue e petto i cori,

Spirto con spirto e cor con cor si stringe.

Palpitan gli occhi e de le guance i fiori
Amoroso pallor scolora e tinge;

E morendo talor gli amanti accorti
Ritardano il morir per far due morti.’^

Venus then explains to Adonis that as they lie dying and their souls
are escaping by their mouths (the typical image of real death), they
can convert their mutual death into new life by way of yet another
kiss in which the departing soul of each will pass into the other:

Da te I'anima tua morendo fugge,
lo moribonda in su '1 baciar la prendo,

E 'n quel vital morir, che ne distrugge,

Mentre la tua mi dai la mia ti rendo.’

Adonis is an apt pupil, and since he is being initiated into these
mysteries of love in deed as well as word, he himself is able to exult in
this life-giving death (vital morir) wherein the dying lover is re-
suscitated in the beloved:

Morendo io vivro in te, tu in me vivrai,

Cosi ti rendero quanto mi dai.™

After many kisses, deaths, renewed kisses, and resuscitations, the
lovers are finally rapt into the heaven of love (Venus's own) in a last
sexual spasm:

Stillansi I'alme in tepidetto umore,

Opprime i sensi un dilettoso oblio.

Tornan fredde le lingue e smorti i volti,

E vacillano i lumi al del travolti.

"The spirits tremble under most intense ardors when the kiss spurs the soul
to die. Tongues change mouths, hearts [change] breasts, spirit embraces spirit,
heart [embraces] heart. Eyes flutter, and an amorous pallor drains the color and
paints again the flowers of the cheeks; and the able lovers as at times they die
withhold their dying to make two deaths." 131:1-8.

* "Your soul as you die flees from you; I, dying, catch it in kissing, and in that
vital death that destroys it, while you give me yours I give mine back to you."

i32;i-4._

™ Dying, I shall live in you, you in me will live. Thus I shall return as much as
you give me." 135 :j-8.

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THE RENAISSANCE-BAROQUE AGE

Tramortiscon di gioia ebre e languenti
L'anime stanche al ciel d'amor rapite.“

Again one naturally calls to naind the artistic representations of the
ecstatic deaths and love-wounds of saints as well as that spiritual
eroticism of religious writers which received some of its most intense
accents in the Counter Reformation or the Baroque age. The analogy
and the interplay, perhaps even the confusion, between religious and
sexual love were as characteristic of this period as of the late Middle
Ages. But in this central episode of Marino's Adone, as in his Canzone
dei bad, the secularization of mystic (Christian and Neoplatonic)
amatory conceits has reached extravagant proportions, utterly unre-
deemed by anything like the psychophysical love symbiosis found in
certain of the medieval love legends (e.g., Tristan and Iseult) as it is
lacking in the rich ambiguity of the Tassian elegiac-voluptuous sur-
render to the love-death.

We must end this excursion into Italian poetry with Marino's
osculatory bravura, for although kissing continued to be a common
subject with Italian authors, nothing new was added to the particular
images that interest us.^® Hence it will be more profitable to turn to
the fortune of the conceits in French literature.

French Authors: Badinage and Ravissement

The earliest Renaissance poet of France in whom the soul-in-the-
kiss motif occurs is Clement Marot, who applied it neatly to his blend-
ing of sensuality and badinage, witness these verses from the charm-
ing rondeau "Du baiser de s'amie" (1524) :

Bref mon esprit sans cognoissance d'ame
Vivoit alors sur la bouche a ma Dame,

Dont se mouroit le corps enamoure:

Et si la levre eust gueres demoure
Centre la mienne, elle m'eust succe Fame
En la baisant."

" "The souls are distilled in a warm moisture, a delightful oblivion weighs upon
the senses. Tongues turn cold and faces pale, eyes waver, faced toward the heavens.
The weary souls, languishing and drunk with joy, now swoon, ecstasied into love's
heaven." 147:5-8; 148:1-2.

° "My spirit, in a total trance, lived then on my lady's mouth, whereby my body
full of love was dying; and if her lip had stayed a little longer against mine, she
would have drawn out my soul in kissing it." Poetes du XVP siecle, ed. Albert-
Marie Schmidt (Paris, 1953), p. 35.

213

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Here already is something of the theme we saw perfected in Guarini
and Marino. In kissing, the lover's spirit (vital spirit) has left the body
lifeless because it makes its life on the lady's lips. If the kiss were to
last any longer, the lover's soul would be drawn into his lady's body.

Less "innocent" is a quatrain {Epigrammes, cclxix) in which
Marot, punning on the theme of love as a desire for union, defines the
kiss as an incitement to lovers to fuse into one in the sexual embrace;

Baiser souvent, n'est ce pas grand plaisir?

Dites ouy, vous aultres amoureux:

Car du baiser vous provient le desir
De mettre en un ce qui estoit en deux.**

After Marot, the kiss conceit appears briefly and in simple form
in verses from Maurice Sceve's Delie. The kiss has drawn the poet's
soul to his lips :

L'esprit vouloit, mais la bouche ne peut
Prendre conge, et te dire: a Dieu, Dame!

Lors d'un baiser si tres doulx se repeut,

Que jusqu'au bout des levres tyra I'Ame."*

There are several places in Sceve's Delie where Neoplatonic love con-
ventions are evident, but inasmuch as the kiss conceit does not figure
in them, we may forgo treatment of them here. However, their presence
and the overall context of the work would seem to indicate that the
poet has used the kiss conceit primarily as a Neoplatonic convention
rather than as a sensual image, although it also partakes of the latter.

A writer who, like Sceve, was active at Lyons and who does de-
mand our closer attention is the poetess Louise Labe. In her passionate
love poetry the kiss conceit is used to remarkable and vital effect in
conjunction with the themes of the union and psychic exchange of
lovers and the lover's ecstatic death. There are two sonnets to consider,
of which the first deserves to be quoted in its entirety if we would
appreciate the personal and original way in which the amatory conceits
are employed:

® Kissing often is not this a great pleasure? Say yes — all you lovers; for from
the kiss arises the desire in you to make into one that which was two." Oeuvres
completes, III, ed. P. Jannet (Paris, 1873), wz-
" spirit is willing, but the mouth cannot take leave and say to you, 'Fare-
well, my lady. When one may have again so sweet a kiss that it draws the soul
to the tip of the lips." Delie, CCCLXIV, in Poefes du XVP siecle, p. 196.

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THE RENAISSANCE-BAROQUE ACE

Oh si j'estois en ce beau sein ravie
De celui la pour lequel vois mourant:

Si avec lui vivre le demeurant

De mes cours jours ne m'empeschoit envie:

Si m'acollant me disoit, chere Amie,

Contentons nous Tun Tautre! s'asseurant
Que ja tempeste, Euripe, ne Courant
Ne nous pourra desjoindre en notre vie:

Si de mes bras le tenant acolle,

Comme du lierre est Tarbre encercele,

La mort venoit, de mon aise envieuse,

Lorsque, souef, plus il me baiseroit,

Et mon esprit sur ses levres fuiroit,

Bien je mourrois, plus que vivante, heureuseT

The sonnet is built upon a series of conditions that takes up the
first thirteen lines of the poem (si j'estois . . . , si avec lui si

m'accollant . . . , si de mes bras . . . , lorsque . . .) and prepares the last
line's apparently paradoxical conclusion that the lover would be hap-
pier in death than in life. The paradox, however, resolves itself by a
play on the meanings of the word die. At the outset the lover is "dying"
in the unrealized desire to be joined to or, better, rapt into the beloved.
Dying here (vs. 2) signifies the anguish resulting from unfulfillment
and separation. The various images that are presented in the fol-
lowing verses to line ten develop the idea of reciprocity and the union
of the lovers (in a sensual Ovidian fashion) against possible sources
of division. In line eleven death is again introduced, not now, how-
ever, as signifying the languishing and suffering of the unrequited
lover of line two, but as a threat to the union envisaged in the lover's
daydream ("la mort . . . de mon aise envieuse"). But death as a threat
may be more apparent than real, or it may by a pun be turned into
victory. The fact is that the union fancied by the lover is the sexual
union (the image of entwining the beloved as ivy entwines a tree is, of
course, quite clearly a sexual symbol); and death is to intervene just

"Oh, if I were rapt into that fine breast of him for whom I am dying; if envy
did not prevent me from living with him for the rest of my short days ; if, embrac-
ing me, he would say: 'Dear beloved, let us make each other happy, being confident
that neither storm, nor [straits of] Euripus, nor [ocean] current can disunite us
while we live.' If, while I held him in mv arms as a tree is encircled by ivy, death,
envious of my happiness, should come, while he sweetly continued to kiss me
and my spirit took flight upon his lips — why then, I would be happier in so dying
than I am in life." Poetes du XVP siecle, p. 285.

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

here. The literal sense of death is merged into its metaphorical mean-
ing of the climax of the sexual embrace. The clinch or punning image
by which this is effected is nothing less than the soul-in-the-kiss con-
ceit, which is employed to signify the ecstatic death, that is, orgasm, of
the lover. What the poem says in the sestet is this: If, while I am
clasped in a close embrace with my beloved and he is kissing me sweet-
ly, my soul should flee from me to his lips (i.e., if I should die), I would
in so dying be happier than I am in life. The poetess has set up the con-
ditions in which she would be content to die, or, we may say, she has
specified and set up the kind of death she desires against the kind of
death she undergoes in reality (languishing in unrequited love). What
she wishes is the death desired by all lovers, that which comes at the
moment of fulfillment and which, mystically or sexually, is both a
possessing of the beloved and a surrendering of the self. To expire her
spirit on the lips of the beloved would be to die the perfect death of the
lover. Like the mystics of the mors osculi, but in a quite different con-
text, the poetess dreams of dying by the kiss of her lord and being rapt
into his bosom.

The sonnet "Baise m'encor, rebaise moy et baise" is an unusually
fine example of the Renaissance revival of the Catullan invitation to
osculatory delights, availing itself of a Neoplatonic mystico-amatory
convention. The last eight verses are especially relevant to our interest:

Ainsi meslans nos baisers tant heureus
Jouissons nous I'un de I'autre a notre aise.

Lors double vie a chacun en suivra.

Chacun en soy et son ami vivra.

Permets m'Amour penser quelque folie:

Tousjours suis mal, vivant discrettement,

Et ne me puis donner contentement.

Si hors de moy ne fay quelque saillie.®

In the previous sonnet the vision was one of being rapt into the
beloved by a kiss ; here the poetess imagines a mutual indwelling of the

® "And so mingling our kisses so happily, let us enjoy each other at our pleasure.
Then a double life will come to each. Each will live in himself and in the beloved.
Permit me, my Love, to entertain some mad thoughts; I am always unhappy, living
discreetly, and cannot give myself ease unless I make some leap outside of my-
self." Ibid., p. 287. Louise Labe's sonnets have received much attention of late. For
a full account and for an eloquent interpretation see Enzo Giudici, Louise Labe e
I'ecole lyonnaise (Naples, 1964), especially the chapter "II messaggio amoroso e
poetico della Belle Cordeliere." The sonnet "Baise m'encore . . is given particular
attention.

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lovers. Although there is no explicit mention of souls, it is clear that
the idea depends on the soul-in-the-kiss conceit: the double life of
these lovers — each living in himself and in the other — results from
a mingling of kisses. At this point the erotic fantasy is called a “folie"
for which Louise asks the indulgence of her beloved. As in the previous
sonnet, we are told here that in the world of reality she knows nothing
but the anguish of unrequited love which she can alleviate only
occasionally by "going outside herself." That, one would think, is her
"folie"; and so it is, except that it too refers to the fantasy's wish-
fulfillment of living in the beloved. To go, indeed, "to leap" outside
oneself (in a kiss) is to experience an ecstasy (which is also a "folie").
Thus the sonnet concludes with a witticism that colors the whole. The
"saillie" of the poetess is indeed a saillie d' esprit.

Even before Guarini and Marino in Italy, the French poets of the
Pleiade, taking their cue chiefly from Johannes Secundus and the
Italian Neo-Latin poets, wrote ad infinitum on the delights of kissing.^®
It is not surprising therefore that the soul-kiss motif and the accom-
panying conceits of the union, transformation, and ecstasy or sexual
dying of lovers should be well represented in their verse.^^ Among
French poets, in fact, the soul kiss is generally laden with the heaviest
sensual significance, and it may even be said that they outdo the
Italians in their scabrous punning on the theme. In connection with
this, it is to be remembered that in France, Platonism or Neoplatonism
(in matters of love) never became as deeply entrenched or as wide-
spread as in Italy and England. As a fad among the French poets, its
heyday lasted but a few years around the middle of the sixteenth
century, and its love conventions were for the most part rejected with
irreverent delight by those poets of the Pleiade who had themselves
first indulged in many of the Neoplatonic themes imported from Italy.'®
Joachim Du Bellay's famous attack in the poem "Contre les
Petrarquistes" is directed against "Platonic love" as much as against
the Petrarchizing mannerism of style:

J'ay oublie Fart de Petrarquizer

Je veulx d' Amour franchement deviser.*

Petrarchism and Neoplatonism, as we have already noted, were
in fact interwoven into one general poetic mannerism. In the revulsion

* "I have forgotten the art of Petrarchizing. I wish to talk realistically of love."

217

THE KISS SACRED AND PROEANE

against Petrarchizing Neoplatonic concepts of love, Du Bellay's muse
could go to the other extreme of Ovidian sensuality, as in the follow-
ing verses from a Baiser ("Quand ton col de couleur de rose") where
the poet revels in the nectarine tongue kiss, and, perhaps partly with
Ariosto's verse in mind (see above), speaks of gathering the flower of
the beloved's breath from her lips :

Puis quand j'approche de la tienne
Ma levre, et que si pres je suis,

Que la fleur recueiller je puis
De ton haleine Ambrosienne :

Quand le soupir de ces odeurs,

Ou noz deux langues qui se jouent
Moitement folastrent et mouent,

Evente mes doulces ardeurs,

II me semble estre assis a table
Avec les Dieux, tant suis heureux,

Et boire a longs traicts savoureux
Leur doulx breuvage delectable.”

This is the closest Du Bellay comes to the soul-in-the-kiss image as
such, although one notes that the poet develops with considerable
efficacy the theme of being made an equal of the gods by virtue of the
ecstasy-inducing ambrosia of his lady's kisses.

The poetry of Pierre Ronsard offers so many examples of the
soul-kiss conceit — invariably as a mark of a frankly sensual love —
that we are faced with an embarrassment of riches in selecting a few
significant examples. Generally, Ronsard's use of the image can be
traced to a specific source — Marullo and, more often, Secundus — but
even when he seems to be translating, Ronsard is so genuinely a poet
that the result never seems slavishly derivative. This may be seen, for
example, in the chanson "Harsoir, Marie, en prenant maugre toy / Un
doux baiser," a poem closely modeled on Marullo's popular poem
"Suaviolum invitae rapio dum, casta Naera" quoted above.^® So too
the ode "Ma dame ne donne pas," although patterned on Secundus's

“ Then when I bring my lip to yours and am so close that I can pluck the flower
of your ambrosian breath. When the sigh of these scents, where our two tongues
playing with each other moistly sport and pout, fans my sweet ardors, I am so
happy that I seem to be sitting at table with the gods, and drinking with long
delicious draughts their sweet delectable beverage.'^ Divers jeux rusticjueSf ed. H.
Chamard (Paris, 1947), pp. 92-93.

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THE RENAISSANCE-BAROQUE AGE

Basia IV-V, has a uniquely Ronsardian freshness, especially in the
lighthearted play on the idea of the soul being sucked up in a kiss."° The
latter image, which is frequent in Ronsard, is sometimes invoked in
order to express a paroxysmal passion:

Marie, baisez-moy: non, ne me baisez pas,

Mais tirez moy le coeur de vostre douce haleine;

Non, ne le tirez pas, mais hors de chaque veine
Succez-moy toute I'ame esparse entre vos bras.''

The kiss coupled with the image of dying as a sexual metaphor
is likewise found more than once in Ronsard's poetry. In the ode "O
pucelle plus tendre" the poet's life clings to his beloved's lips, and in
a mutual embrace and kiss the lovers will die together:

Un baiser mutuel
Nous soit perpetuel.

Ny le temps, ny I'envie
D'autre amour desirer,

Ne pourra point ma vie
De voz levres tirer;

Ains serrez demourrons,

Et baisant nous mourrons.

Tous deux morts en mesme heure.

Voirrons le lac fangeux,

Et I'obscure demeure
De Pluton I'outrageux,

Et les champs ordonnez
Aux amans fortunez.'"

The poem, inspired by Secundus' Basium 11, develops the motif of
the lovers being transported after their mutual death to the Elysian
fields of fortunate lovers, a realm where, unlike that of Dante's
Francesca and Paolo, "les amans ont de bien." This motif was especially

'"'Kiss me, Marie; no, do not kiss me, but draw out my heart with your sweet
breath; no, do not draw it out, but from each vein suck all my soul, languid be-
tween your arms." Oeuvres completes, I, 150. Similarly in the ode "Ma petite
Nvmphe Macee," the poet says of his lady's kiss: "Tu suces Tame et le sang"
(ibid., I, 455). Cf. Aulus Gellius: "sugis animam," and Secundus: "animam sugere
suaviolis" (Eleg., I, 5).

"May a mutual kiss be forever ours. Neither time nor the desire to long for
other love will ever draw my life away from your lips; and so shall we stay em-
braced and we shall die while kissing, both of us dead in the same hour. We shall
see the muddy lake of Pluto's dark abode, and the fields decreed for fortunate
lovers." Ibid., II, 702.

219

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

popular with Ronsard and the other French poets. For example, in
the chanson "Plus estroit que la vigne a I'ormeau/' the same erotic
dream occurs: the lovers die on a kiss and are borne in the same bark
to Elysium where they are honored by the holy band of ancient
lovers — "la troupe sainte autrefois amoureuse."^^

That to die on a kiss was a constant desire in the poet's erotic
dream-world is attested by the opening quatrain of a sonnet where
Ronsard asserts that he would gladly die in the embrace of his beloved
if he could, while kissing her, expire his soul into her body :

Se je trespasse entre tes bras, Madame,

Je suis content: aussi ne veux-je avoir
Plus grand honneur au monde, que me voir,

En te baisant, dans ton sein rendre I'ame.^

It is not easy to say whether there is here a punning on dying, kissing,
and sein which would make for a double entente ambiguity. The verses
contain a thought that is similar to what we have found in Louise Labe,
although in their somewhat formal gallantry they are quite different
from the intellectual yet highly emotionally charged conceits of the
poetess.

Among other poets of the Pleiade, Jean-Antoine Baif and Remy
Belleau pillaged the Basia of Secundus for their own kiss poetry. The
Second livre des amours of Bai'f consists chiefly of baisers with oc-
casional references to the soul-in-the-kiss motif, which the author
manages to treat with a scurrilous inventiveness second to none.

It was an ancient belief of the Stoics that the male seed contained
the soul-stuff, and it was evidently something of the sort that was in
Bai'f's mind when, describing the sexual embrace within the metaphors
of the mingling of souls and dying, he spoke of his soul passing over
into his mistress by way of seminal emission. This left him dead.
Fortunately, however, his mistress knew the art of reviving him by
returning his soul to him in kisses:

O doux plaisir plein de doux pensement,

Quand la douceur de la douce meslee,

Etreint et joint. Fame en Fame mellee,

Le corps au corps accouple doucement.

^ If I die in your arms my lady, I am happy; therefore I wish to have no greater
honor in the world than to see myself, while kissing you, give up my soul in your
breast." Ihid., I, 34.

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THE RENAISSANCE-BAROQUE AGE

O douce mort! 6 doux trepassement!

Mon ame alors de grand' joye tremblee,

De moy dans toy s'ecoulant a I'emblee,

Puis haut, puis bas, quiert son ravissement.

Quand nous ardentz, Meline, d'amour forte,

Moy d'estre en toy, toy d'en toy tout me prendre.

Par celle part, qui dans toy entre plus,

Tu la refoys, moy restant masse morte:

Puis vient ta bouche en ma bouche la rendre.

Me ranimant tous mes membres perclus/

In another of Baif's poems ("Vivons, Mignarde, vivons . . ."),
lover and beloved "die" not simultaneously, but alternately. The ad-
vantage of this is that there is always one surviving partner ready to
revive the other by means of the soul kiss. Even more than the pre-
ceding poem, the "douce rage d'amour continual" expressed by this
dithyramb is a riotous desecration of the Neoplatonic kiss and the
Ficinian theory of the transfusion of lovers' souls into each other with
accompanying deaths and resuscitations.^^ Yet Bai’f has merely done
what we have seen other poets do in their rejection of Platonic love:
he has seized upon the equivocal Neoplatonic sacrament, the soul kiss
(although it also came to him from libertine sources) and put it to work
in the cause of an unambiguous sensual love. But he has done it with
even less reserve than most. This is a good place to remark that when
Italian and French poets of a parodistic or sensually oriented vision
adopted the image of death as a metaphor to signify sexual orgasm,
they were shooting barbs not only at the current Neoplatonic love
psychology but also at the "Petrarchan" convention of the lover's
daily and multiple deaths because of unrequited love.

The same procedure can be observed in certain poems by Remy
Belleau, although in the following verses, inspired by Secundus, the
motifs of the kiss and the exchange of souls are handled in a more
subdued and elegant fashion. As the lovers kiss, their souls will live

^ "O sweet pleasure, full of sweet thought, when sweetness from the sweet
mingling, embraces and unites soul mixed with soul, body sweetly joined with
body. O sweet death! O sweet passing! My soul then shaken by great joy,
flowing at once from me into you, now high, now low, seeks its ecstasy. When we
are on fire with powerful love, Meline, I to be in you, you to take me wholly into
you, by that part which goes farthest into you and you receive it [i.e., my soul],
while I remain a lifeless mass; then your mouth comes to return it within my
mouth, bringing life back to all my paralyzed limbs." Les amours de Jean-Antoine
de Ba'if, ed. M. Auge-Chiquet (Paris, 1909), p. 147.

221

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

in one another, and one same breath will animate their bodies or
hearts :

Quant je presse en baisant ta levre a petis mors
line part de mon ame est vivante en la tienne,

Une part de la tienne est vivante en la mienne,

Et un mesme soupir fait vivre nos deux cors.’'

These lines echo Basium XIII of Secundus. But perhaps Belleau is bet-
ter remembered here for the way in which he elaborated the kiss of the
Song of Songs in his paraphrase of that book of the Bible. He has the
bride speak at the outset in the following manner:

Doncques mon cher Espous, mon mignon, ma chere ame
En fin est de retour: que sa bouche de basme
Me donne promptement pour ma flamme appaiser,

Le nectar ensucre d'un amoureux baiser.^

In the dedicatory preface to his paraphrase, which he called Eclogues
sacries prises du Cantique des Cantiques, the author says that the
bride is the Church and the Bridegroom is Christ. Readers, he adds,
ought not to appropriate these verses "to their own personal advantage
and according to their particular [earthly] affection," for the theme is
that of "a love that is totally divine and spiritual." Be that as it may,
Belleau's rendering is such that its manner is hardly to be distinguished
from that of his secular love poems, and one can best evaluate the above
verses by applying to them the terse comment Belleau made on a son-
net by Ronsard ("Marie, levez-vous . . .") : "Ce ne sont que mignar-
dises."

Over and over the Pleiade poets meet with the erotic life-in-death
kiss that enraptures them out of themselves and into the beloved —
"ainsi ravi / Hors de moy dans elle je vy.""® But it were best to give
some brief attention to writers not in their orbit, since, after all, such
conceits were universal.

^ When I press your lip kissing it with little bites, one part of my soul is living
in yours, one part of yours is living in mine, and one same sigh [of love] makes
both our hearts [or bodies] live." La Bergerie, ed. Doris Delacourcelle (Geneva,
1954)/ P- 121. Belleau's verses echo Basium XIII of Secundus. Other examples of
the conceit in La Bergerie are common. See ibid., pp. 118-119. Belleau also has the
theme of lovers dying on a kiss and passing together over Styx. See the first poem
of the Premiere journee de la Bergerie.

^ Then my dear Spouse, my love, my dear soul has returned at last; let his
mouth full of balm quickly give me to quench my flame the sweetened nectar of a
loving kiss." Oeuvres poetiques de Remy Belleau, II, ed. Ch. Marty-Laveaux (Paris,
1878), 297, 299.

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THE RENAISSANCE-BAROQUE AGE

A poet who dallied with the soul-kiss conceit on several occasions
was Jean Vauquelin. At least once he manages to add an original note
of piquancy to the well-worn theme. In a poem in which a lady is
invited to embraces and kisses, we have the idea of love reducing
duality to mutuality and unicity by joining souls in a kiss; since there
is no longer any thine and mine in such a fusion, in kissing one another
each of the lovers will be kissing himself;

Faisons encor s'entrebaiser
Nos ames pour les appaiser:

Amour puissant qui les assemble
Les s^aura bien lier ensemble:

Ouvrier il les detrempera,

Et de deux une il en fera,

Qui n'aura plus, 6 belle lolle,

Qu'en [sic] mesme esprit mesme parolle.

Me baisant vous vous baiserez,

Et me Salmacis vous serez.'^

The oscular-sexual fantasy indulged in by the poet is in truth a vision
of a perfect psychophysical symbiosis. The Salmacis the poet would
have his lady be to him was the nymph who, finding herself spurned
by Hermaphroditus, threw herself upon him while he was bathing
and clung so tenaciously and strongly as to become fused with him,
resulting in the creature partaking of both sexes.

One of the better-known French examples of the soul-kiss com-
monplace is found in a poem by Vincent Voiture. Although there is
nothing original or unusual about the treatment of the conceit itself, it
is freer than most French examples from an oppressive sensuality, be-
ing toned down by Voiture to the key of elegant drawing-room
eroticism.

Mon ame sur ma levre estoit lors toute entiere.
Pour savourer le miel qui sur la vostre estoit;

“Let us also make our souls kiss one another to bring them peace; mighty Love
who brings them together will be able to bind them to each other; like a craftsman
he will temper them and from the two of them he will make one, which, o fair
lolle, will no longer have but one same spirit, one same word. In kissing me you
will kiss yourself, and you will be my Salmacis." Les diverses poesies de lean
Vauquelin Sieur de la Fresnaie, II, ed. J. Travers (Caen, 1870), 547. See also p. 566
where the lover says to the beloved while kissing her; "de moy ravi / Tout entier
dans toy ie vi."

223

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Mais en me retirant, elle resta derriere,

Tant de ce doux plaisir I'amorce Tarrestoit.*^

With Tristan THermite we are again in the Ovidian-Catullan
spirit of the Pleiade poets. In a poem appropriately entitled "L'extase
d'un baiser," he adds to the cases of erotic “death" resulting from the
enrapture of the soul overcome by the intense pleasure of the kiss. A
baroque witticism introduced by the poet is not without efficacy. The
kiss, which is supposed to be a bearer of life and health (the play is
on the word salut), hastens this lover to his tomb:

Ah! mon ame s'envole en ce transport de joie!

Ce gage de salut, dans la tombe m'envoie;

C'est fait! je n'en puis plus, Elise je me meurs."*

Jean de Lingendes, a poet who deserves to be better known,
adopted the soul-kiss conceit several times, most enchantingly in
verses that seem to have been written under the inspiration of the
kiss passage in Guarini's Pastor fido. Here, too, the lover recalls that,
in kissing his beloved, his soul came to her lips to surrender his life.
In that moment the lover's entire being was concentrated into the
ecstatic sensation itself so that he felt that his very life was transformed
into a kiss:

Mon esprit se vint rendre alors,
Enchante sur ces rouges bors,

Ma vie en ceste douce envie
Pour ma passion appaiser,

N'estant plus pour tout qu'un baiser,
Mais un baiser qui fut ma vie.®

"My soul was then wholly upon my lip to taste the honey that was on yours;
but as I withdrew, it stayed behind, so strongly did the lure of this sweet
pleasure hold it back." Les oeuvres de Monsieur de Voiture, ed. A. Roux (Paris,
1856), p. 471.

Ah, my soul takes flight in this transport of joy! This promise of salvation
[health] sends me to the tomb; it is done! I can no more resist, Elise, I die!" Les
amours, la lyre, les vers heroiques . . . (Paris, igog), p. 147. The Catullan spirit
of Secundus and the Pleiade poets is present in the poem "Les baisers de Dorinde."
See ibid., p. 76.

® My spirit came to give itself up then, enchanted on these red borders, [and]
in this sweet desire to allay my passion my life was worth no more than a kiss,
but a kiss that was my life." Oeuvres poetiques, ed. E. T. Griffiths (Paris, igi6),
p. 54. The verses are from the poem "Des changemens de la bergere Iris" where
the soul-kiss image is repeated; and in the poem "Tirsis," we read of lovers em-
bracing long and nourishing themselves on each other's soul by kissing (p. 140).

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THE RENAISSANCE-BAROQUE ACE

As a last example from the libertine poets, we note that in the
last four stanzas of his famous lyric "Le promenoir des deux amants,"
Theophile De Viau develops the death-from-the-kiss motif. Playing
on the concept of dying, the poet wittily concludes that if he does not
die (i.e., if he is not ecstasied) by his lady's kisses, then he really
deserves to die:

Climeine, ce baiser m'enyvre,

Cet autre me rend tout transi.

Si je ne meurs de celuy-cy,

Je ne suis pas digne de vivre.^

Although almost no credence is given to the Neoplatonic inter-
pretation of the kiss by the French poets, there are at least two cases
in novels of the early seventeenth century in which it is invoked. In
Le Quatrieme livre des Bergeries de Jidiette by Nicolas de Montreux,
the kiss is real enough but "spiritualized" by a Neoplatonic veneer:

. . . les [amants] avoyent passe iusqu'au baiser, qui sans doubte est la
perfection du plaisir que I'amour peut apporter a ceux qui le suyvent.
. . . Et durant la douceur du baiser, qui colle les bouches fermement
ensemblent, dont les douces haleines, portent ce bien dans tous nos
esprits vitaux, qui s'entresent, cela faict que les ames mesmes, en
mesme temps s'entrelient, et se baisent, ravies en ioye, d'une si douce
chose.®

^ "Climeine, this kiss intoxicates me, and this one completely chills me [i.e., to
death]. If I do not die from the latter, I am not worthy to live." Oeuvres poetiques
(Paris, 1926), p. 53.

Before leaving the French poets, we may take note of some verses from a jocu-
larly libertine poem ("L'occasion perdue et retrouvee") by the dramatist Pierre
Corneille. Like other poets, Corneille employs the soul-in-the-kiss motif in con-
nection with the metaphorical dying and resuscitation — five or six in number — of
a closely embraced couple:

Ce fut alors qu'ils se pasmerent
De I'excez des contentemens:

Que cinq ou six fois ces amans
Mourarent et rescusiterent;

Que bouche a bouche et corps a corps,

Tantost vivans et tantost morts,

Leurs belles ames se baiserent.

In De I'amour au voyage, anthologie thematique de la poesie frangaise (Paris,
1958), p. 281.

® ". . . the [lovers] had reached the kiss, that is undoubtedly the most perfect
pleasure that love can give to those who follow it. . . . And during the sweetness
of the kiss that cements mouths firmly together, and whose sweet breaths convey
this good to our vital spirits that feel in harmony, it happens that the souls them-
selves are simultaneously intertwined and kiss each other, enraptured with the
joy of so sweet a thing." Le Quatrieme livre des Bergeries de Juliette . . . (Paris,

1595), p. 361.

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

It is interesting to note that here the kiss is said to be love's perfect
pleasure much in the way the courtly and Neoplatonic tradition con-
sider it to be the utmost intimacy allowed to pure lovers. It is obvious,
however, that the kiss is analyzed for the voluptuous sensations it
offers, and the thought that souls are led by the sweetness of the kiss
to mingle actually figures here as an image that conveys the idea of the
intensity of the pleasure experienced.

In a second novel, Helie Decoignee's Silene insense ou, V estrange
Metamorphoses des Amans fidelles, Elydor, a shepherd wasting away
for love, asks a kiss of his nymph, assuring her that kissing is but the
union of spirits and the soul's way of communing:

. . . il n'ira rien du vostre en me baisant, puisque le baiser n'est rien
qu'union des esprits, qu'un langage de Tame, et un discours muet de la
passion d'amour, que debrez vous done craindre, en parlant a moy de
ce langage de coeur et de pensee?**

But here too, more than that of a simple shepherd, it is the voice of the
voluptuary that speaks, borrowing the language of spiritual love to
promote a hedonistic end."^

English Authors; Platonicks and Antiplatonicks

That the soul-kiss image was bound to capture the imagination of
Elizabethan and seventeenth century Englishmen is understandable
when we consider that in England osculatory salutations between the
sexes seem to have been rather common, even promiscuous, if we are
to believe the reports of some observers. Readers will perhaps remem-
ber the remarks of the young Erasmus in a letter (1499) describing his
indulgent amazement at the great liberty in kissing among the English:

Nevertheless, did you but know the blessings of Britain, you would
clap wings to your feet, and run hither ... To take one attraction out
of many; there are nymphs here with divine features, so gentle and
kind, that you may well prefer them to your Camenae. Besides, there
is a fashion which cannot be commended enough. Wherever you go,
you are received on all hands with kisses; when you take leave, you

^ ... you will lose nothing of your own in kissing me, since the kiss is nothing
but a union of spirits [minds], a language of the soul, and a silent discourse on
the passion of love; what then should you fear in speaking to me with this
language of hearts and mind?" Silene insense ou, V estrange tAetamorphoses des
Amans fidelles (Paris, 1613), foil. 50'^— 5i‘".

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are dismissed with kisses. If you go back, your salutes are returned to
you. When a visit is paid, the first act of hospitality is a kiss, and when
guests depart, the same entertainment is repeated; wherever a meeting
takes place, there is kissing in abundance; in fact, whatever way you
turn, you are never without it. Oh Faustus, if you had once tasted how
sweet and fragrant those kisses are, you would indeed wish to be a
traveller, not for ten years, like Solon, but for your whole life in
England.25

This philematological propensity of the English is abundantly re-
flected in their own literature where the number of kisses seems almost
to equal the combined output of French and Italian writers. As to the
soul-in-the-kiss image, it is at least as easy to come by in English poetry
as in French and Italian. It is to be noted, however, that this particular
motif did not become popular in England until the time of the Eliza-
bethans, so that numerous continental sources for it were available
as models. Chief among these must have been Castiglione's famous
passage, which was known not only in Italian but also in Sir Thomas
Hoby's influential translation (1560) of the Book of the Courtier. Ow-
ing to its importance, Hoby's English version deserves to be given here:

Therefore the woman to please her good lover, beside the graunt-
ing him mery countenance, familiar and secret talke, jesting, dalying,
hand in hand, may also lawfully and without blame come to kissing:
which in sensuall love according to the Lord Julian's rules, is not law-
full. For since a kisse is a knitting together both of bodie and soule,
it is to bee feared, lest the sensuall lover will be more inclined to the
part of the bodie, than of the soule: but the reasonable lover woteth
well, that although the mouth be a parcell of the bodie, yet is it an
issue for the wordes, that be the interpreters of the soule, and for the
inwarde breath, which is also called the soule: and therefore hath a
delite to joyne his mouth with the womans beloved with a kisse: not
to stirre him to any dishonest desire, but because hee feeleth that that
bonde is the opening of an entrie to the soules, which drawne with a
coveting the one of the other, poure themselves by turne the one into
the others bodie, and bee so mingled together, that each of them hath
two soules.

And one alone so framed of them both ruleth (in a manner) two
bodies. Whereupon, a kisse may be saide to be rather a coupling to-
gether of the soule, than of the bodie, because it hath such force in
her, that it draweth her unto it, and (as it were) separateth her from
the bodie. For this doe all chaste lovers covet a kisse, as a coupling of

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soules together. And therefore Plato the devine lover saith, that in
kissing, his soule came as farre as his lippes to depart out of the bodie.
And because the separating of the soule from the matters of the sense,
and the through coupling her with matters of understanding may be
betokened by a kisse, Salomon saith in his heavenly booke of Balates,
O that he would kisse me with a kisse of his mouth, to expresse the
desire he had that his soule might be ravished through heavenly love
to the beholding of heavenly beautie, in such manner, that coupling
her selfe inwardly with it, she might forsake the bodie.

As for English poetry, the earliest example of the conceit may be
that found in a free translation of Serafino Aquilano's strambotto
"Incolpa, donna, amor" (see above, among Italian examples). This is
Sir Thomas Wyatt's short lyric, "Alas! Madame, for steyling of a
kysse." As in the Italian poem, here too the poet advises the indignant
lady that the best way to punish him for his theft is to give him yet
another kiss, for then he would surely die:

Then revenge you, and the next way is this :

An othr kysse, shall have my life endid.

For to my mowth the first my hert did suck.

The next shall dene out of my brest it pluck.^®

There is a reference to the motif in the Hecaiompathia (1582) of
Thomas Watson, an interesting fact inasmuch as this volume of poems
was admittedly a pastiche of the love conventions of the Petrarchan-
Neoplatonic poetic tradition of the continent, and the author proudly
points to all his Greek, Latin, Italian, and French sources in a prose
commentary to the poems. In poem 20, Watson exults in the memory
of a kiss bestow'ed upon him by his beloved, and to express the bliss
then experienced, he writes:

Forthwith my heart gave signe of joye by skippes.

As though our soules had joynd by joyning lippes."'

Though he gives no direct source for the conceit, Watson does have a
marginal note in Latin: "Siquidem opinati sunt aliqui, in osculo fieri
animarum combinationem," a commentary suggesting that at this
time the conceit was still new and daring in England.

The motif, however, was being picked up by others, such as Sir
Philip Sidney, who introduced it in his famous sonnet on the kiss
{Astrophel and Stella, 81) in rather orthodox Neoplatonic fashion:

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O kiss which souls, even souls, together ties
By links of love and only Nature's art.

Considerably more sensuality envelops Sidney's use of the image in a
song ("O dear life, when shall it be") from the same canzoniere. Suffer-
ing because of a separation from Stella, Astrophel consoles himself
with thoughts of the delights that will be his when he is reunited with
his beloved:

Think of that most grateful time
When my leaping heart will climb
In thy lips to have his biding.

There those roses for to kiss
Which do breathe a sugared bliss.

Opening rubies, pearls dividing.

This is anything but the dream of a Platonic lover. Rather it is a
vision of a bliss not unlike that which we have found expressed in
Guarini's Pastor fido. The lover's heart would dwell on his lips to enjoy
the lips of his lady. Conventional preciosity is present in the rubies
and pearls; and also to be noted is the rhyme of kiss and bliss, which in
amatory verse (in English) is perhaps only slightly less inevitable and
common than the association between love and dove, which latter term
has its own close connection with the kiss. For the English, in fact, the
kiss conceit nearest at hand and most easily exploited consisted of the
idea that the touch of the beloved's lips equaled a paradisal state of
blessedness. The conceit as such, of course, was no invention of the
English, but in developing it they seemingly had an advantage over
the Italians and the French in this purely linguistic accident which
provided them with the binominous rhyme made up of the two key
terms, kiss and bliss. By the same token they would be less favored in
exploiting the erotic connection between the flower and love — less
favored, say, than the Italians, who had fiore and amore in rhyme,
which binominal received its apotheosis in Dante's Divine Comedy
{Paradiso, XXX, 7-9). But that the kiss-bliss rhyme was also an easy
occasion for abuse is known to any reader of English love poetry.
Even within the limits of our concern, we will meet with it several
times.

The Neoplatonic idea of the chaste kiss in reciprocal love is played
out fully in an ode by Robert Greene. Meditating on the treasured

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values of life — wealth, honor, friendship, perfect health, power —
Philomela concludes that pure love surpasses all others because of the
wonderful quality of the kiss enjoyed by its practitioners. It will be
seen that Greene, like many other authors, points to the connection
between breath and soul which is at the origin of the conceit:

Love 'twixt lovers passeth these.

When mouth kisseth and heart grees.

With folded arms and lippes meeting.

Each soul another sweetly greeting;

For by breath the soul fleeteth

And soul with soul in kissing meeteth.^®

The handling of the image by Ben Jonson is less didactic, more
sensually and wittily orientated, but quite engaging despite its de-
pendence on previous models. In the Sad Shepherd (I, 6) the following
dialogue takes place;

MARION: You are a wanton.

ROBIN HOOD : One, I do confess,

I wanted till you came; but now I have you
I'll grow to your embraces till two souls.

Distilled into kisses through our lips
Do make one spirit of Love.

And in the author's Volpone (III, 6) the image is put into service by
Volpone himself in anything but a Platonic sense when, in an effort
to seduce Celia with "sensual baits," he promises her all the voluptuous
joys of love, culminating in those pleasures of kissing.

Where we may so transfuse our wandering souls

Out at our lips . . . ,

which seems to be a veiled allusion to dying in the sexual sense.

Robert Tofte was openly willing to "die" kissing his lady:

Content am I to lose this life of mine.

Whilst I do kiss that lovely lip of thine.^®

Perhaps the most famous of all instances of the conceit in English
literature is the ecstatic exclamation of Christopher Marlowe's Faustus :

Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships.

And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. (Kisses her)

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Her lips suck forth my soul; see where it flees!

Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.

Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips.

And all is dross that is not Helena.

It is remarkable how in the space of a few lines Faustus has managed
to refer to several aspects of the kiss conceit: immortality bestowed by
the beloved's kiss; the soul ravished by the kiss and passing over to the
beloved; the request for the soul's return (through another kiss); the
paradisiacal life enjoyed by the lover on the beloved's lips. The debt
of this passage to an indefinite number of possible sources takes noth-
ing away from the perennial magic and freshness with which Marlowe
has imbued it.

The many allusions to kissing in Shakespeare would themselves
fill a little volume, but here we need only pause on those — they are the
most interesting — that are of immediate relevance to our study. On at
least two occasions the soul-kiss image intensifies the sense of pathos
and/ or passion in a scene depicting the forced separation of lovers. In
King Henry VI, Part II, the banished Suffolk takes leave of his mistress.
Queen Margaret, with anguish in his heart and words of despair on
his lips. His ardent wish at this moment is reminiscent of similar re-
quests made by French and Italian poets: to die by expiring his soul
into his lady's body by way of a kiss. That would be a glorious death,
for then his soul could do without the need of an afterlife journey to
Elysian fields. There in his lady's bosom, in fact, it would be dwelling
in its true Elysium:

If I depart from thee I cannot live;

Where, from thy sight, I should be raging mad.

And cry out for thee to close up mine eyes.

To have thee with thy lips to stop my mouth:

So shouldst thou either turn my flying soul.

Or I should breathe it so into thy body.

And then it liv'd in sweet Elysium

(III, 2)

If the conceit here seems somehow less trivially gallant and more vital
than in so many other examples, that is because it has found its way
into a context that is so much more charged with the true stuff of life
and human passion.

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In the play Richard II, during the farewell scene between the king
and his wife, the important theme of the mystic exchange of hearts
through the kiss is likewise revitalized by a context depicting the real
suffering of lovers. After receiving the king's heart and giving hers
in a kiss, the Queen requests her own again, for in her anguish she
fears she would cause the death of her husband's heart in her breast.
In a second kiss the hearts are returned to their respective bodies. It
is her own heart that will break in the Queen's bosom:

RICHARD; Come, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief.

Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief.

One kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part;

Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.

(They kiss)

queen: Give me my own again, 'twere no good part
To take on me to keep and kill thy heart.

(They kiss again)

So, now I have mine own again, be gone.

That I may strive to kill it with a groan.

(V, i)

In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the story of the young lovers
may be said to begin and end with a kissing scene. At the outset the
couple's first kisses are, in a literal sense, wittily exchanged. The fol-
lowing dialogue occurs as Romeo takes a kiss from Juliet's lips:

ROMEO : Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.

Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.

JULIET: Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

ROMEO: Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged!

Give me my sin again.

JULIET: You kiss by the book.

(h 5)

Act V of the play opens with Romeo's account of a dream which
presages the unhappy fate of the lovers, although, ironically, Romeo
interprets it as an augury of happiness:

I dreamt my lady came and found me dead
And breathed such life with kisses in my lips.

That I revived, and was an emperor.

(V, i)

Every reader knows the play's ending; the double suicide, with Romeo
slaying himself over what he takes to be the dead Juliet, and the latter

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awakening beside her dead lover only to join him in death. The deaths,
real as they are, like the deaths of Pyramus and Thisbe and of Tristan
and Iseult (and of other lovers), have erotic significance. Here is death
on a kiss. Romeo's words as he takes his poison and dies are :

Eyes, look your last!

Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death !

Thus with a kiss I die.

(V, 3 )

And when Juliet seeks to die by kissing Romeo in the fond hope that
some poison may yet be on his lips, she would effect the opposite of
what her lover's dream had been. She even manages another pathetic
witticism by which the kiss (inasmuch as Romeo's lips may yet have
poison on them), normally thought of as a restorative, and dreamed
of as such by Romeo, becomes in fact a way of death, which, of course,
it also is on occasion:

I will kiss thy lips ;

Haply some poison yet doth hang on them.

To make me die with a restorative.®'

Though Juliet is denied this manner of dying, her end is no less erotic,
for like Dido and Thisbe, she brings herself death with her lover's
sword (or dagger). When she dies falling on Romeo's body, we may
be sure that she does so pressing her lips to his.

It is this same love-death that Shakespeare attributes to one of
the most remarkable figures in the world of the theatre when he has
Othello stab himself and fall on the wife he has slain:

I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee: no way but this;

Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.

Finally, we would not forget Cleopatra's stunning line, "Eternity
was in our lips and eyes" {Antony and Cleopatra, I, iii), which recalls
something of Marlowe's Faustus on Helen's kiss. And Antony, it will
be remembered, was yet another lover who desired to die upon a kiss.®®

Moving on from Shakespeare, we note first that the soul-in-the-
kiss conceit is used by Bishop Henry King in "The Surrender," a poem
dealing with the separation of lovers. Its unusual feature is that the

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parting is not caused by any external force but is the result of an end
of reciprocal love. The lovers, who have been holding one another
(i.e. each other's heart) in keeping, are returned to themselves in the
farewell kiss:

In this last kiss I here surrender thee
Back to thyself, so thou again art free.

Thus in another, sad as that, resend
The truest heart that lover ere did lend.®®

That frequent imitator of Italian poetry, William of Hawthornden,
employed the image at least three times. In "The Quality of a Kiss,"
after inquiring of his lady whether a kiss he received from her was a
sign of death or life, he decides that it must be understood as death
because by it his soul left him and went out to her: "of life it could not
be, / For I by it did sigh my soul to thee." In the lyric "To Thaumantia,"
he invites his lady to join lips with him so that while they are embrac-
ing, "to augment our bliss, / Let souls e'en other kiss." And in "Desired
Death" he tells his lady that in kissing her, "all panting in my lips / My
heart my life doth leave"; but it is so sweet a death that he would will-
ingly surrender all sense of life if he could only so die forever!®^

The extraordinary popularity of the soul-kiss theme is also dem-
onstrated by its presence in several airs of the early seventeenth centu-
ry. By far the most charming of such songs is an anonymous madrigal
printed in 1613 :

Hero, kiss me or I die.

On thy lips my soul doth lie.

There I left it, for in kissing

Thee, I found my soul was missing.

Quickly send it then to me

By a kiss, or you undo me.

If to send it you deny,

I needs must die.

And all the world shall know thy cruelty.®®

This theme of losing one's heart or soul to the beloved in a kiss
followed by the lover's request for its return or an exchange by the
same means enjoyed particular favor with the English poets. James
Shirley developed it in "A Kiss" with just the right amount of gallantry
and wit to give the commonplace a delightful turn:

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I could endure your eye, although it shot
Lightening at first into me;

Your voice, although it charm'd my ear, had not
The power to undo me:

But while I on your lip would dwell.

My ravished heart leap'd from his cell.

For, looking back into my breast,

I found that room without a guest.

Return the heart you stole thus with a kiss.

When last our lips did join.

Or I'll forgive the theft, to change a bliss.

And have your heart for mine.

I ne'er till now believ'd it truth.

That lovers' hearts were at their mouth.

Now by experience I may say.

That men may kiss their hearts away.®®

The English, we have seen, found the kiss conceit especially well
suited to poems about the temporary or permanent separation of lovers.
The poet John Donne employs it in vigorous if brief fashion in such a
context ("The Expiation");

So, so, break off this last lamenting kiss
Which sucks two souls, and vapours both away.

Another fleeting allusion to the image occurs at the opening of Donne's
poetic epistle "To Sir Henry Wotten, Knight":

Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls,

For thus, friends absent speak . . .

Used here as the term of a comparison, the motif presupposes familiar-
ity with it on the part of readers. At the same time, it was still vital
enough to offer Donne a witty and attractive figure by which to suggest
the intimate nature of his epistle.

In the history of the soul-in-the-kiss motif a conspicuous place is
occupied by Thomas Stanley, the indefatigable translator. Stanley
translated a portion of Pico's commentary to Benivieni's Canzona
under the title A Platonick Discourse upon Love (published in 16^1)
and so knew directly Pico's germinal kiss passage though it does not
figure in his version. Moreover, he also translated fourteen of the
nineteen Basia of Secundus and, in so doing, gave exquisite rendering
to the soul-kiss image.®’’ But Stanley claims our attention even more

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because also in his own poems (filled with echoes from other writers,
to be sure) he frequently employs the conceit in a manner which sug-
gests acquaintance with it from Plato and Aulus Gellius down to its
presence in English poets of his own day. In "The Exchange: Dia-
logue," the kiss is the means by which the Ficinian love mysteries of
psychic exchange and union are carried out. Each of the lovers' souls
dwells simultaneously within its respective body and in that of the
beloved; because the love is reciprocal, the two are one and each is
two. Such is the miracle of love and the kiss :

PHiLOCHARis : That kiss which last thou gav'st me, stole
My fainting life away;

Yet, though to thy breast fled, my soul
Still in mine own doth stay.

Weak Nature no such power doth know;

Love only can these wonders show.

CHARIESSA ; And with the same warm breath did mine
Into thy bosom slide.

There dwell, contracted unto thine.

Yet still with me reside.®®

Another instructive employment of the image is found in a poem
which in the 1647 edition of Stanley's Poems bore the significant title
"The Killing Kiss." The first stanza of this poem develops the theme
of the mystic death of lovers, that is, the dying to corporeal desires and
sensations. As the lovers kiss, their souls come forth, escaping from
the prison of the body (the "death" image) to commune with one
another in a spiritual dialogue:

When on thy lip my soul I breathe.

Which there meets thine.

Freed from their fetters by this death.

Our subtle forms combine:

Thus without bonds of sense they move.

And like two cherubim converse by love.®®

Stanley, however, does not sustain this idea of a spiritual communion
which is soon contaminated by kisses desired for the languorous sen-
sations they bring. What the lover goes on to plead for is hardly in
keeping with the angelic life referred to in the first stanza. It is, as
he says, the very moment of "pleasing death" that alone "gives ease
unto [his] pain. Thus he desires to die again and again, as is in-

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dicated in the Serafino-like rather than seraphic conceit at the end of
stanza four:

Kill me once more, or I shall find
Thy pity than thy cruelty less kind.

The poem then is another illustration of how the soul kiss could easily
fall away from its Neoplatonic meaning to express a love which is its
very opposite. But it would be wrong to conclude from this that Stanley
was a militant antiplatonist. His use of the conceit in association with
the metaphor of dying never reaches the extremes of sexuality, let
alone the licentiousness, of such poets as Bai'f and Marino. He seems
rather to be representative of the degeneration of Platonic love into
a not too dangerous erotic gallantry.

The Neoplatonic bias is clear enough in the following lines from
a poem by Charles Cotton (the famous seventeenth century translator
of Montaigne) :

Each kiss of thine creates desire.

Thy odorous breath inflames love's fire.

And wakes the sleeping coal:

Such a kiss to be I find
The conversation of the mind.

And whisper of the soul.'*®

But again, if this is the "Platonic" kiss, then it must be admitted that
a certain ambiguity is present. Here, in fact, it would be proper to
speak of a glaring contrast between the sense of ardent passion as-
sociated with the kiss in the first three lines and the spiritual inter-
pretation given to it in the next three. In medieval Christian symbolism
of the kiss this symbiosis was possible and even encouraged for, the
lovers in question being God and the human soul, there was no real
danger of misunderstanding the nature of the love and the kind of
kiss involved. But Cotton and others like him are speaking of love and
kisses between two human beings. The verses are still another testi-
mony to the dangers that lurked within the "blameless" Neoplatonic
kiss.

A more sober Platonic coloring is given the kiss by Lord Herbert
of Cherbury in the poem entitled "The First Meeting." As the poet
reminds his beloved of their first meeting, he explains how his soul
was ravished and made to dwell in her, where it found new joys. Then
in a kiss the poet received in exchange his lady's soul, much more

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refined than his own. It is a case of the Neoplatonic wedding of minds
(or souls) effected by the kiss of pure lovers :

Nor here yet did your favours end.

For whil'st I down did bend.

As one who now did miss

A soul, which grown much happier than before.

Would turn to more.

You did bestow on me a Kiss,

And in that Kiss a soul infuse.

Which was so fashion'd by your mind.

And which was so much more refin'd.

Than that I formerly did use.

That if one soul found joys in thee.

The other fram'd them new in me.^^

Despite the spiritualization of the kiss in such cases as this by
Lord Herbert of Cherbury and other English writers, the talk is none-
theless about a real kiss. The ultimate refinement or aberration (de-
pending on the poet's amorous and metaphysical disposition) comes
when it is felt that souls may kiss without the actual meeting of lips
as the vehicle. As in Italy and France, so too in England it was this
extreme of nonsensual passion that was becoming known rather
loosely as Platonic love. From the poets Spenser and Sidney on, the
Neoplatonic psychology and philosophy of love were favorite topics
more and more among English poets and courtiers.^ And in 1654
James Howell noted that "The Court affords little News at present,
but that there is a Love call'd Platonick Love, which much sways there
of late; it is a Love abstracted from all corporeal gross Impressions,
and sensual Appetite, but consists in Contemplations and Ideas of the
Mind, not in any carnal Fruition."^® This is the love exalted by
Theander in Sir William Davenant's delightful satire The Platonick
Lovers: "How! marry her! Your souls are wedded. Sir, Tm sure you
would not marry bodies too; that were a needless charge" (II, i)-

It is in the expression of this angelistic conception of love that
the soul kiss becomes that lifeless kiss of souls or minds which com-
pletely does away with oscnla corporalia. This was well enough for the
mystics, who could kiss only in this way since God was one of the
partners, and the Divinity, of course, is approachable only in the spirit.
If there is any advantage to this disembodied osculation among hu-

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mans, it is in the belief that it may be enjoyed even in absence. Carew's
lyric “To My Mistress in Absence" is a case in point :

Yet let our boundless spirits meet.

And in Love's sphere each other greet . . .

There, whilst our souls do sit and kiss.

Tasting a sweet and subtle bliss . . .

Let us look down, and mark what pain
Our absent bodies here sustain.^'*

Here there is at least the suggestion that the bodies of the separated
lovers may be uncomfortable; but then that is of no consequence be-
cause this love wishes to be contemplative and ethereal to the point
of creating disdain for the weak flesh. Thus, Donne, who knew both
kinds of love, in his “Valediction, Forbidding Mourning," writes:

But we by a love so far refined
That ourselves know not what it is.

Inter-assured of the mind.

Care less eyes, lips and hands to miss.'*®

For the Platonistic amorist sufficiently refined by love, the wed-
ding or kiss of souls is not thwarted by spatial obstacles. There is a
charming rendition of the theme in a Song (“Soul's joy, now I am
gone") formerly attributed to Donne but now generally considered to
belong to the Earl of Pembroke. Forced to leave his lady, the poet, in-
stead of asking for an exchange of hearts in a farewell kiss, addresses
these reassuring words to her:

Let not thy wit beweep
Words, but sense deep:

For when we miss
By distance our life's joining bliss.

Even then our souls shall kiss.*®

Concerning the vogue of Platonic love among English poets, John
Smith Harrison long ago pointed out that "this idea of restricting love
to the experience of soul as opposed to the enjoyment of sense is the
one notion which runs beneath many of the love lyrics written in the
seventeenth century; and it is the point attacked by opponents. The
attacks, in fact, were many, as in John Suckling's Aglaura (c. X638),
where one of the characters, Orsames, asked to give his opinion con-

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cerning “the Platonics" or “those of the new religion of love," replies
curtly that their love philosophy is "a mere trick to enhance the price
of kisses."

A focal poem in this debate is John Donne's famous and much
discussed poem "The Ecstasie." In "A Valediction, Forbidding Mourn-
ing," we saw that the lovers "care less" about doing without gazing,
kissing and holding hands. To "care less," however, could suggest that
even for Donne's lovers there is not an absolute eschewal of the
pleasure of all bodily contact; it is just that these lovers are able to
forego corporeal intimacies to a greater degree than those who are
not so refined as to be "inter-assured of the mind." "The Ecstasie," the
experience of which unperplexed the lovers of that poem but has ever
since perplexed its readers, does not really seem too far removed from
this concept. Indeed, whatever specific interpretation one wishes to
give to Donne's aim (was he playing the role of a cynical voluptuary
or was he a sincere, perfectly ethical Aristotelean realist?) in this poem,
it can hardly be denied that the following verses argue that even
"pure" lovers who have attained a spiritual union cannot or should
not long forego the expression of their love in physical terms. While
earthly existence endures, the usefulness — perhaps the rightness and
the need — of physical intimacies as vehicles for the communication
of souls is seen as a stubborn though not a repugnant fact of reality:

So must pure lovers souls descend

T'affections and to faculties

Which sense may reach and comprehend.

Else a great Prince in prison lies.

Although this is not a total repudiation of Platonic love, it does argue
against the "Platonic" idea that the body is by necessity the soul's
tomb.^®

Among those directly attacking the Neoplatonic love conventions,
William Cartwright, in his poem "No Platonique Love," made a frontal
assault precisely on the themes of the bodiless embrace of minds, the
exchange of hearts, and the disembodied kiss of souls:

Tell me no more of Mind's embracing Minds,

And heart exchang'd for hearts;

That spirits spirits meet, as Winds do Winds,

And mix their subt'lest parts;

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THE RENAISSANCE-BAROQUE AGE

That two unbodi'd Essences may kiss.

And then like Angels, twist and feel one Bliss.^®

And the poet Abraham Cowley, in "The Injoyment" (1647), as though
in a rebuttal to those who, like Donne, could "care less lips and hands
to miss," turns the soul-kiss conceit into a metaphor expressing rabid
sensual passion and desire:

Nought shall my hands or lips controule.

I'll kisse thee through. I'll kiss thy very Soule.^®

Within the framework of the epithalamium, a genre allowing
for the enumeration of physical pleasures legitimized by marriage, the
poets could freely recommend the soul kiss in its quality of voluptuous
sensation. Thus Phineas Fletcher gives newlyweds the following
counsel :

Give the first onsett with delightful kisses
Not such as sliding light
Onlie salute the brimme
And those faire lippes doe lightlie overswimme
But such as sucke the sprite
From his retyred seate.®*

So too in Robert Herrick's "An Epithalamium," the groom is told to
proceed quickly to kisses because

Soules, and breaths, and lipps excite
Sweetes, to rouse up appetite.®^

Jasper Mayne was also among those who turned the conceit into
a metaphor expressing the acme of sensual pleasure. Cosmic par-
ticipation is what he wants from the ecstatic soul kiss:

Let's number out the hours of blisses.

And count the minutes by our kisses ;

Let the heavens new motions feel
And by our embraces wheel.

And whilst we try the way
By which lover doth convey
Soul into soul.

And mingling so

Makes them such raptures know

As makes them entranced lie

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

In mutual ecstasy.

Let the harmonious spheres in music roll.®^

Finally, John Cleveland, author of a lyric entitled "Antiplatonick,"
could have given the same name to another of his poems ("To the State
of Love, or The Senses' Festival"), where the image is used in rollick-
ing fashion to express the sensual pleasures of lovemaking:

Our mouths incountering at the sport
My slippery soul had quit the fort
But that she stopped the sally-port.®^

Then later in the same poem, he intimates what must have sent a shud-
der through all Neoplatonic amorists when he refers to this "soul
kissing" as but a light, preliminary skirmishing in the war of love,
whose major battle is elsewhere:

Yet that's but a preludious bliss.

Two souls pickeering in a kiss.

One could continue to enlist examples of the kiss in support of
either the Platonics or anti-Platonics. But theirs is perhaps an endless
quarrel which it is now time to transcend. To this purpose I would
quote again from John Donne who, besides using the kiss conceit spar-
ingly as a poet, gave it much attention as a preacher. One of his ser-
mons ("Preached upon Trinity-Sunday"), is in fact a long disquisition
on the meaning of the kiss. The following passage is particularly
relevant here, because in it Donne touches on several points we have
discussed in the course of the present work:

In the Old Testament, at first God kissed man, and so breathed the
breath of life, and made him a man; In the new Testament Christ
kissed man, he breathed the breath of everlasting life, the Holy Ghost,
into his Apostles, and so made the man a blessed man. Love is as strong
as death: As in death there is a transmigration of the soule, so in this
spirituall love, and this expressing of it, by this kiss, there is a trans-
fusion of the soule too; And as we find in Gellius a Poem of Platoes,
where he says, he knew one so extremely passionate, Ut parum affuit
quin moreretur in osculo, much more it is true in this heavenly union,
expressed in this kisse, as S. Ambrose delivers it. Per osculum adhaeret
anima Deo, et transfunditur spiritus osculantis. In this kiss, where
Right eousnesse and Peace have kissed each other, In this person, where
the Divine and the human nature have kissed each other. In this
Christian Church, where Grace and Sacraments, visible and invisible

242

THE RENAISSANCE-BAROQUE ACE

means of salvation, have kissed each other. Love is as strong as death;
my soule is united to my Saviour, now in my life, as in death, and I
am already made one spirit with him: and whatsoever death can doe,
this kisse, this union can doe, that is, give me a present, an immediate
possession of the kingdome of heaven.®®

It is fascinating to see Donne quoting side by side the Platonic kiss
conceit (as given by Aulus Gellius) and St. Ambrose on the divine
kiss, and just as fascinating to find him making the connection between
the kiss and death as ways or metaphors for the soul's spiritual migra-
tion and union with God. But perhaps the most compelling idea we
find here associated by Donne with the kiss — as indeed it was in the
Song of Songs and in medieval writers — is that love is as strong as
death. For it is the "kiss" that does now what otherwise only death can
do: unite the soul with God.

243

Epilogue

brief survey of the aftermath is in order so that we may
be brought up to date. The kiss topos and the conceits
attached to it continued to be used in secular and religious
amatory writing alike, albeit with less frequency and less
creativeness or depth of feeling, save perhaps in the area of devotional
literature. This was the state of affairs until the Romantic age, when
the kiss motif was strikingly revitalized.

The prelude to this later stage is perhaps to be found in the re-
telling of the story of Abelard and Helo'ise by the neoclassical Alex-
ander Pope. In the verse epistle Eloisa to Abelard (1717), Pope has
Heloise (now a nun) imagine her own last moments taking place in
the presence of Abelard. Her first impulse is to invite her former
lover to kiss her as she expires and so suck up her fleeing soul; but
this thought gives way to a more pious one as she urges him rather
to be present in clerical garb and to hold before her uplifted eye the
crucifix :

Thou, Abelard! the last sad office pay.

And smooth my passage to the realms of day;

See my lips tremble, and my eyeballs roll.

Suck my last breath, and catch my flying soul!

Ah no — in sacred vestments mayst thou stand.

The hallowed taper trembling in thy hand.

Present the Cross before my lifted eye.

Teach me at once, and learn of me to die.

(321-328)

The passage brings to mind both Tasso and Crashawe, in its
vision and theme if not in sensuous appeal. It is followed by verses
in which Pope, perhaps influenced by Italian seventeenth century
paintings depicting the ecstatic death of saints, has Heloise imagine
the manner of Abelard's death (vss. 337—342). After the vision of her
lover's death, Heloise, in keeping with the medieval legend, prays that
she and Abelard may be entombed in one same sepulchre, there to
be forever together:

244

EPILOGUE

May one kind grave unite each hapless name.

And graft my love immortal on thy fame.

(343-344)

The image of grafting her immortal love on his fame is pregnant with
erotic suggestiveness. In addition to its first meaning — her name for-
ever linked with his in a "tender story" (vs. 364) that she hopes will
survive and (vss. 359-366) find a poet worthy of its telling (i.e.. Pope)
— the line evokes a sexual fantasy of a physical union, and one can
easily slip in the reading and hear frame as the rhyme word. The sit-
uation (or fantasy) is much like that in which Francesca and Paolo find
themselves. Francesca's "immortal love" (bad though it be) is grafted
onto Paolo's fame (which is also infamy, to be sure) in a "tender story"
that found a sympathetic listener (Dante the wayfarer) and a worthy if
uncompromisingly righteous poet (Dante the author of the Divine
Comedy). At the same time, her immortal love is grafted, as it were, to
Paolo's beautiful but damned frame in an eternal carnal embrace which
is figured by a kiss. In the context of Pope's poem, if Heloise and Abe-
lard are in one kind grave, then we may assume (and here the knowl-
edge of the medieval legend assists us) that they are locked in a "face
to face" embrace, and Heloise, in all her love, "grafted" to Abelard's
frame.

Leaving Pope, we must stop somewhat longer on the astonishing
figure of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and first on his modern day (eigh-
teenth century) Heloise. One of the most clamorous episodes of La
noiivelle Heloise proved to be the scene in which the "philosophical"
hero, Saint-Preux, kisses Julie (the heroine) for the first time (Part I,
letter 0.4). In describing the overpowering and disordering effect of
that kiss, Saint-Preux referred to it by the startling expression "baiser
acre," an acrid kiss. The phrase did more than scandalize linguistic
purists, but even Voltaire's raillery was unable to check the sensational
effect of that kiss. It has even been said that the "baisers acres" that
Saint-Preux found on the lips of Julie revolutionized hearts and imag-
inations which until then (i.e., during the eighteenth century) had been
accustomed to think of love either in the manner of a badinage or, at
best, as a harmless pastime.^ Despite its exaggeration, there is an ele-
ment of truth in this statement. What needs to be added, however, is
that the hearts and imaginations- — especially the feminine ones —
were won over not only by the idea of the acrid yet longed-for kiss
Saint-Preux knew, but also and perhaps more so by the quality of that

245

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

same kiss as experienced by Julie. In bis directions for an engraving
to be made in illustration of that first kiss of the lovers, Rousseau de-
scribed its nature and effect on the heroine, and here the kiss is said —
in Italian — to have been cosi saporito (so savory) as to cause her to
swoon. This scene was in fact represented over and over by artists
through the latter half of the eighteenth century and the early years of
the nineteenth, and it is the union of the two elements, the acre and
the saporito, making for the rediscovery of the kiss (i.e., love) as a
bittersweet and profound experience that had the greatest impact on
the sensibility of the time.

In connection with this baiser acre-cosi saporito, mention should
be made of an equally significant episode from the life of Rousseau.
In the Confessions (Part II, Book 9), the author narrates the circum-
stances attending the first tremulous kiss he exchanged with Mme.
d'Houdetot after a long, frustrating courtship. After that Rousseau
goes on to tell of his daily visits to the countess and how he would
be welcomed by her with a kiss that had the character of a sacred rite.
But it was the very thought of the kiss awaiting him that was enough to
ecstasy him much in the manner of the medieval troubadours: "As I
went along, I dreamed of her whom I was going to see, of the af-
fectionate welcome she would give me, of the kiss awaiting my arrival.
That single kiss, that fatal kiss [baiser funeste], even before I received
it, so enflamed my blood that my head was swimming; a dazzlement
blinded me, my trembling knees were unable to support me." Here then
is a baiser funeste to match the baiser acre experienced by Saint-Preux.
We may add here that after their necessary separation Rousseau wrote
a long, emotionally charged letter (which he did not send) to Mme.
d'Houdetot in which he despairs at the thought that he can no longer
expire his soul upon her heart in ardent kisses."

Returning briefly to La nouvelle Helo'ise, it is of great interest to
find that the hero at one point has a Tasso-like (let us call it so) vision
or desire of plunging a dagger into the breast of his beloved Julie, of
mixing his blood with hers and then expiring his breath-soul on her
lips while receiving hers (Part III, letter 16).® For this fantasy, coupled
with the baiser acre-cost saporito, was a motif taken up and adapted
by Goethe in The Sorrows of Young VJerther, an epistolary novel that
owes not a little to Rousseau. In Goethe's book events move toward
a climax which is nothing less than the kiss that Werther gives to
Charlotte. With that kiss we are near the end of the young hero's

246

EPILOGUE

life and of the novel. Following quickly upon it, as Werther prepares
for suicide, his thoughts are that by that kiss he and Charlotte are
forever joined; his vision or hope is that of an eternal embrace and
kiss in the afterlife. One feels that Goethe had in mind not only
Rousseau's work but medieval literature as well — the Tristan-Iseult
and Abelard-Heloise legends, and the couple from Rimini.

The Romantic apotheosis of the soul kiss is perhaps to be found
in Ugo Foscolo's Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis, an epistolary novel
which in turn owes something to both La nouvelle Helo'ise and
Werther. Here, upon kissing the beloved Teresa for the first and only
time, the hero is blasted with ecstasy in a manner that recapitulates
the entire amoristic tradition from the troubadours, the dolce stil novo
poets, and Dante to Rousseau and Goethe. Paradisal nympholepsy has
seldom received such glowing eloquence as here where the kiss of the
beloved transfers all of nature into Eden regained and transforms the
hero from a Saturnian into a Uranian type. And like Tristan at the
moment of his first kiss with Iseult, Jacopo invokes voluptuous death:

Everything I saw seemed to me joyous laughter of the universe:
I gazed with grateful eyes at the sky and it appeared to have been
opened wide to welcome us: Ah! why did death not come? and I in-
voked it. Yes, I kissed Teresa; the flowers and plants at that very
moment exhaled a sweet fragrance; the breezes were all in harmony;
the streams echoed from afar; and all things were made fair by the
brightness of the moon that was filled with the infinite light of divinity.

. . . Teresa embraced me, trembling all over, and transfused her sighs
into my mouth, and her heart beat on this breast; gazing at me with
her large languishing eyes, she kissed me, and her moistened lips, half-
closed, murmured on mine.

After that kiss I became divine. My ideas are more sublime and
joyous, my face more gay, my heart more compassionate. I feel that
everything becomes beautiful before my eyes; the complaints of the
birds, the whispering of the breezes in the leaves are sweeter than ever;
plants flourish, flowers take on color at my feet; I no longer flee from
men and all nature seems to be mine. My mind is all beauty and har-
mony. If I had to carve or paint that beauty I would disdain all earthly
model and find it in my imagination.'*

In Jacopo Ortis the paradisal kiss occurs near the middle of the
novel, but its effect is long and the episode can be said to mark the
book's psychological and emotional center. As the hero notes, it is
a celestial kiss that is forever on his lips and dominates all his

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

thoughts. One more kiss and he would in fact die (letter of May 27).
But although Jacopo is denied the luxury of dying on Teresa's lips,
his real, self-inflicted death is eroticized in view of his last thoughts,
which revolve around the memory of that one kiss by which his soul
was poured into the beloved's bosom: "And our lips and our breaths
were intermingled, and my soul was transfused into your breast."®

In addition to the obvious Dantean echoes in Foscolo's passages,
the kiss episodes of Werther and Jacopo Ortis bear a significant sim-
ilarity to the story of Dante's Francesca in a detail worthy of note.
Paolo and Francesca, we remember, were brought to their damning
kiss by the reading of a romance. Werther and Charlotte are led to
their fatal kiss under the spell of a passage from Ossian. And Jacopo
and Teresa come to their ecstatic and fatal kiss after a discussion of
Petrarch as a poet of love and a recital, by Jacopo, of the odes of
Sappho !

It would be strange indeed if, at this point, we were able to pass
on without mentioning Percy Bysshe Shelley. One of this English
Romantic's most passionate transports was recorded by him in the
poem Epipsychidion, where, in the context of what is meant to be
an expression of the highest degree of Platonic love felt by the poet
for Emily Viviani, we read of his desire for the soul-mingling kiss. As
the vision has it, by that kiss and the love it expresses, the two will
merge into a psychophysical oneness which is to carry them to one
same life and one same death :

Our breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound.

And our veins beat together; and our lips
With other eloquence than words, eclipse
The soul that burns between them, and the wells
Which boil under our being's inmost cells.

The fountains of our deepest life, shall be
Confused in Passion's golden purity.

As mountain-springs under the morning sun.

We shall become the same, we shall be one
Spirit within two frames, oh! wherefore two?

One hope within two wills, one will beneath
Two overshadowing minds, one life, one death.
One Heaven, one Hell, one immortality.

And one annihilation.

(565-574; 584-587)

248

EPILOGUE

The poem comes to a close here, for, just as in the culminating moment
of Dante's experience of mystic communion (with God), words, or
the poet's high fantasy itself, are unable to sustain and express the in-
effable vision of "Love's rare Universe." Like the preceding passage by
Foscolo, Shelley's verses will bring to mind medieval and Renais-
sance writings. But among them in this case will be the legend of
Tristan and Iseult. And yet, once again it is chiefly Dante who claims
our attention, not only as the author of the Vita Nuova, which work
is referred to in the poem's Advertisement, but also as the poet-
chronicler of the kiss (i.e., love) of Paolo and Francesca. Shelley might
well have thought of Dante's couple as sharing as one both life and
death and, beyond that, a state that was both Heaven and Hell, both
immortality and annihilation.

Again, there is little that is especially striking about the use of
our amatory conceits by the writers since the Romantics, except the
fact itself that they have continued to be part of the language of love.
Undoubtedly, each reader will have in mind a passage or two meriting
attention. We must be content here to cite but one case from a relatively
recent author. I choose it from among the many because it is one of
the most fascinatingly decadent, I am tempted to say sacrilegious, ex-
amples of the kiss-and-death image known to me. It occurs when
Marcel [Proust] likens the "soul kiss" of Albertine to the gift of the
Holy Spirit, the receiving of the communion and the viaticum. Even
her kisses on Marcel's neck are first spoken of in religious terms as
kisses of peace:

It was Albertine's turn to bid me goodnight by kissing me on both
sides of my neck; her hair caressed me like a wing with sharp sweet
feathers. As incomparable one to the other as these two kisses of peace
were, Albertine yet slipped into my mouth, bestowing on me the gift
of her tongue, like a gift of the Holy Spirit, giving me thus the viaticum,
and leaving me with a store of tranquillity almost as sweet as did
my mother when she used to place her lips on my brow in the evening
at Combrey.

Perhaps we ought not to be surprised to learn that these words occur
only among the variants of Proust's monumental work; the passage
corresponding to them in the established text makes no reference to
the kiss of peace, the Holy Spirit, and the viaticum.®

By way of bringing this study to a close, it may be profitable to

249

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

refer to a curious and significant connection between the kiss conceit
and the history of modern sculpture. One of the best-known works
of sculpture in the Western world is Rodin's Kiss, of which there are
several versions (Fig. 17). It is to be noted that this sculpture was in-
spired by Dante, Rodin's first study of the motif being the group
Paolo and Francesca, meant for the artist's Dantean Gates of Hell.
But other considerations are to be made here. It has been said that
"Le Baiser is the only great work by a Western artist that approximates
in spirit to the mithuna couples of Indian art."’^ The group, in fact,
represents the psychophysical merging of lovers into one during a
kiss. The further point of unique interest is that with this famous piece,
Rodin may be said to have closed an era of art that was chiefly inspired
in its forms and manner by classical standards. One may see this im-
mediately by a comparison with a late Hellenistic (first century b.c.)
bas-relief now in the Museo Archeologico at Venice (see Fig. 18).®

But if the old or classical basis of sculpture reached its modern
apogee with Rodin's Kiss, the new age of sculpture, at least in one of
its most significant and pervasive directions, was ushered in by an
even more remarkable handling of the theme. In 1908 or 1910 the
Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi, working in Paris, carved his
own extraordinary Kiss, a work that is suggestive of preclassical, or
better, of primitive or primeval forms (Figs. ig, 20). The fact that
Rodin's Kiss supplied Brancusi with the idea of this motif that was
to occupy him for some thirty years makes the contrast between the
two treatments of the theme all the more dramatic.® Brancusi's piece is
a powerful representation of the motif of the merging of two into
one in a kiss and embrace. Here the figures are carved in such a way
that they remain part of the one block. But not the least significant
feature of this sculpture is the fact that it either was made or was al-
lowed by Brancusi to serve as a memorial for the grave of a Russian
girl in the Montparnasse cemetery.'" The meaning the Kiss acquires
in this setting is one with which we are now familiar enough: it is an
affirmation of a love unto and beyond the grave, an assertion that love
is as strong as — nay, stronger than — death.

In this connection we may observe that the motif is to be found
in tomb sculpture of a much earlier period. Touching on the develop-
ment of sepulchral effigies representing husband and wife, Henriette
s'Jacob notes that in the later Middle Ages, "whereas previously they
stared straight in front, apparently unaware of each other's presence.

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EPILOGUE

they now sometimes turn towards each other. This emotional element
was not unknown either to the Etruscans, as is seen in a sarcophagus,
found at Vulci with husband and wife lovingly embracing. The strong
bonds of life are maintained beyond the grave."“ I would substitute
the word love for life unless, as is very likely the case here, the two are
an inseparable binomial. For if, as I think, the piece referred to by the
author — who does not identify it beyond what is said above- — is the
splendid sarcophagal sculpture now in the Boston Museum of Fine
Arts, then we have to do with an everlasting love-union beyond the
grave (Fig. 21). In this piece the two-in-one motif is heightened by the
fact that the two are wrapped in the same winding sheet in such a
way that the separate contours of the pair from the waist down are
discernible, but not in sharp outline, and give the impression of merg-
ing or being about to intertwine. In addition, the wife has one arm
clasped around the neck of her bearded husband in such fashion that
her hand placed on the back of his neck seems to be drawing him
toward her into an even closer embrace and, perhaps, a kiss. Referring
to this and a second Etruscan sarcophagus from Vulci, Erwin Panofsky
makes the following suggestive comment: "Two famous sarcophagi
from Vulci in South Etruria go so far as to show couples linked in an
everlasting embrace so that the roof-shaped lid, characteristic of the
Punic type, appears transformed into a lechis genialis."^'

The reader who has accompanied me thus far will be indulgent
enough to let me close with a poem after all. It is one of the most
poignant expressions to be found in all of literature on our concluding
theme, and such that it must have been placed as a proem to this book
were it not to have its place here. The poem is Emily Dickinson's "If
I may have it, when it's dead," where the impersonal pronoun con-
ceals a very personal object: the beloved [lover] and his love:

Think of it Lover! I and Thee
Permitted — face to face to be — ■

After a Life — a Death — We'll say —

For Death was That —

And This — is Thee.

"Face to face to be" in the afterlife — or in the same grave — suggests,
as we have seen the expression used in mystic eroticism, a kiss and an
embrace throughout eternity.

251

APPENDIX I

The Dove, the Kiss, and the Trinity

"He breathed on them," it is said (John zo, zz), that is, Jesus on
the Apostles, the primitive Church; and he said, "Receive the Holy
Spirit." That was indeed a kiss he gave. What? Was it the corporeal
breath [flatus]? No, rather the invisible Breath [Spiritus] which was
given by way of the Lord's breathing, so that we would understand
that he proceeds from him [the Son] equally as from the Father, like
a true kiss that is common to the one who kisses and to the one who is
kissed.

St. Bernard, Serm. s. Cant. VIII, i, z.

The idea that the Holy Spirit is the Kiss that unites the Father
and the Son indicates specifically the Latin Church doctrine of the
double procession of the Holy Spirit, the teaching that in the mutual
indwelling or coinherence of the three divine Persons of the Godhead
the Spirit proceeds both from the Father and the Son as a single
principle of spiration. Spiration (the theological term) here, like a
kiss, is itself the principle of an active and mutual love. It is one of
the purposes of this appendix to show that the motif of the Holy
Spirit as the Kiss of the Father and Son may have figured in Christian
iconographical representations of the Trinity in a way that is not at
first immediately apparent.

When, in the fourth century, St. Ambrose considered the relation
of the Holy Spirit to the Father and Son, he accommodated his discus-
sion of the absolute unity of the three Persons to an anthropomorphic
imagery and spoke of the Spirit (Breath) of the mouth: "When the
Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, He is not separated
from the Father nor is he separated from the Son. For how can He be
separated from the Father who is the Spirit of His mouth. This surely
both is proof of His eternity, and expresses the unity of the God-
head."^ It is to St. Augustine, however, that Latin Christianity chiefly
owes the idea that makes of the Holy Spirit the bond of love uniting
the Father and Son, a view depending on the concept of the Spirit
proceeding ab utroque. It has been rightly noted that "no part of
Augustine's Trinitarian doctrine has had a more profound or more

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THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

lasting influence upon Christian thought than his 'appropriation' of
the divine love to the Person of the Holy Spirit."" The Holy Spirit is
the Breath common to the first two Persons, the Love that knits them
together: "quia Spiritus est Patris et Filii, tanquam caritas substantialis
et consubstantialis amborum" (In Joan., CV, 3). "Et si charitas qua
Pater diligit Filium, et Patrem diligit Filius, ineffabiliter communionem
demonstrat amborum; quid convenientius quam ut ille dicatur charitas
proprie, qui Spiritus est communis ambobus?"^ In Augustine's words,
the Holy Spirit is the subsistent and consubstantial unitive Love of
the Father and the Son. Thus the Breath or Love of Father and Son
is one and the same Breath or Love.

The particular iconographical depiction to be discussed in con-
nection with these ideas is the anthropo-zoomorphic representation of
the Holy Trinity. Although this has many variations, its essential
features are the portrayal of the Father and the Son in human form
whereas the Holy Spirit is figured as a dove. From the twelfth to the
seventeenth century, this motif had one of its most popular treatments
in a special vertical arrangement which modern iconography refers to
as the Throne of Grace. The Father appears seated on a throne, arms
outstretched and holding by the ends of the transverse beam the Cross
upon which Christ is nailed. The size of the Father is often such that
his head is above the top of the Cross while his feet are at or near its
base. The dove hovers between the heads of the Father and of the Son,
sometimes "proceeding" downwards from the Father's mouth to the
Son, sometimes "proceeding" upwards, its bill touching the Father's
mouth. Frequently, that is, there is a depiction or suggestion of a mouth
to mouth union of Father and Son by way of the dove, either by bill
and tail or by the wing tips. The earliest known representation of this
particular type of the vertical Trinity is found in a Missal at Cambrai
dating from the first half of the twelfth century (Fig. 22). In this re-
markable miniature the dove is horizontal in its bill to tail position, but
its outstretched wings give to it the form of another cross. For us,
however, the most important feature is the very decided way in which
the dove unites the Father and Son by having the tips of its wings
touching, indeed, actually issuing from or entering into the mouths
of the first two divine Persons. In this way the Holy Spirit is seen to
be the divine Breath of Love shared in common and reciprocally
spirated and eternally present in the Father and the Son. There is no
question, then, that such representations illustrate the theological con-

254

APPENDIX I

cept of the double procession of the Spirit. Here we need not pause on
the well-known use of the dove to symbolize the Holy Spirit. Suffice
it to say that this usage has an important Scriptural basis (Luke 3 :2i-
22) and that especially since the sixth century the dove has been the
most common symbol of the Holy Spirit in Christian art, a feature
quite in keeping with the ancient and widespread representation of
the soul or spirit as a bird, particularly in funerary symbolism.'* What
I wish to suggest is that the motif of the dove-HoIy Spirit as it appears
in depictions of the Trinity such as the one discussed here may also
be an illustration of the Holy Spirit as the kiss that unites the Father
and Son. To support such an interpretation, in addition to the medieval
references to the Holy Spirit as a kiss, we must also show that the dove
itself was intimately associated with the kiss — a notion, 1 think, that
can be amply demonstrated.

From ancient times the habits of certain birds were held to in-
dicate an amatory nature ranging from tender affection to lascivious-
ness. Pigeons in general, and doves in particular, had the reputation of
having both characteristics to an extreme. The dove was the bird of
Ishtar and of Venus; indeed at times it was itself a symbol of a fe-
male goddess. Having reminded ourselves of this association, we may
pass directly to the question of the connection between the dove and
the kiss. One could plead the obviousness of such a connection by
remarking that the English language still preserves the verb to bill —
formed on the noun bill for the beak of a bird — as a term for kissing.
Moreover, the dove is the bird that comes to mind with the use of this
word. Thus the Oxford English Dictionary gives the following defin-
ition for the noun billing: "the caressing of doves; kissing; love-
making." For the verb to bill, the complete Webster gives as the two
current meanings: "to touch and rub bill to bill (a pair of doves gently
billing)" and "to caress affectionately: show affection through fondling
and kissing (lovers billing and cooing)." Hence a particular kind of
passionate kiss is known as "the billing kiss" or even, from the Latin
word for dove, columba, "the columbine kiss." But it was in the Latin
writers that this association was first clearly established, and it will
be well to note some pertinent examples.

In an Elysium where a variety of birds dwell, it is the dove that
Ovid portrays in the characteristic act of kissing its mate: "osculo dat
cupido blanda columba mari" (Amores, II, 6, 56). But Ovid offers us
an even more interesting passage when, as a preceptor of love, he ex-

255

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

plains that kissing is the way a lover may placate the fury and tears
of a jealous mistress. The kisses of love will bring peace, and although
there is nothing "spiritual" about this kiss and the peace it brings, the
connection between the two cannot but be striking to us. The princi-
ple involved is not really so different from that found in the Christian
kiss of peace which is understood to bring about a reconciliation:
"Osculo da flenti; Veneris da gaudia flenti; Pax erit; hoc uno solvitur
ira modo" (Ars Am., II, 459-460). In an analogy to this principle of
peace effected by kisses after a struggle, Ovid reports the same be-
havior in doves who are cited as an example to be followed:

Quae modo pugnarunt iungunt sua rostra columbae,

Quarum blanditias verbaque murmur habet.

{Ars Am., II, 465-466)

The inimitable epigrammatist Martial also presents us with per-
tinent texts. In one place he speaks of Issa, a pet dog, being more
playful than Catullus' sparrow and more pure than the kiss of a dove :
"Issa est purior osculo columbae" ( 1 , 109, 2). In another poem, where
he decries the frigidity of a wife in contrast to his own amorous
disposition, he says that he needs kisses like those of the lascivious
dove: "Basia me capiunt blandas imitata columbas" (XI, 65, 7). And
elsewhere he tells of being embraced and kissed long like the caressing
kiss of doves:

Amplexa collum basioque tarn longo
Blandita, quam sunt nuptiae columbarum.

(XII, 65, 7-8)

As a complement to the references to the dove-kiss in Latin erotic
poetry, we may consider those found in a "scientific" treatise — the
Naturalis Historia — of the elder Pliny. From this book, which was one
of the most influential of all Latin texts, we learn that doves have the
habit of kissing each other as a prelude to copulation: "Columbae
proprio ritu osculantur ante coitum" (X, ch. 58). More interesting yet
is the fact that Pliny has a description of dove behavior that confirms
Ovid's observations on the restoral of peace by love kisses. Doves,
says Pliny, practice chastity, neither the male nor the female being
given to "adultery." This faithfulness to mate and nest lasts until
death. At the same time, however, the males are imperious and given
to jealousy; thus the females suffer injustices because they are sus-

256

APPENDIX I

pected of that which is against their very nature — infidelity. When
the male is querulous, he strikes cruelly with the bill, but then, to make
amends he gives the female kisses, pressing around her in order to
obtain amorous favors (X, ch. 34).

The motif of lovers' kisses bringing peace is of importance, for
we find that in the Christian perspective too, love, kisses, and the dove
have a similar relationship. Of course, with the Latin poets the motif
is related to the concept of the attainment of peace in a context of
sexual love. It is in this sense that the erotic poets saw love as a god
of peace and Venus as the conqueror of Mars.

Pacis Amor deus est, pacem veneramur amantes;

Sat mihi cum domina praelia dura mea.®

In returning to the Christian tradition let us first recall that the
spiratio (represented by the dove) of the Trinity is a principle of love.
Thence it is not a great step from Augustine's concept that the Holy
Spirit is the subsistent and consubstantial link of love in the Trinity to
St. Bernard's thought that the Holy Spirit is "the very sweet kiss be-
tween Father and Son," inasmuch as He is "the reciprocal knowledge
and love of Father and Son" (Serm. s. Cant. VIII, i, 1). In the same
context in which he speaks thus, Bernard says that the Holy Spirit
is "the imperturbable peace of Father and Son, their unique love and
indivisible bond of union." Now all these thoughts have a special
relevance to the dove in Christian thinking. The dove, which in
paganism was the bird associated with Venus and sexual love (but also,
at times, with tenderness and faithfulness), continued in Christianity
to be associated with the amatory life primarily, but by no means
exclusively, in a spiritualized sense. In this respect, once again we find
that the Song of Songs with its several references to the Shulamite
as a dove has significant bearing (see Song: II: 10-14; V: 2; VI, 8). The
dove of the Song is the soul-bird (or the Church, frequently referred
to as a dove by Christian writers). It figures then as another name for
the "bride." To be sure, it is a term of endearment, but one used by
lovers. It need not seem captious if we add that this is a dove that
desires to be kissed by its Mate: "Osculetur me osculo oris sui."

Thus among Christians the image of the dove was likely to bring
to mind not only the idea of the Holy Spirit, but also thoughts of love,
kisses, tenderness, and harmony, or, indeed, peace. In short, a symbolic
equivalence obtained among the concepts of breath, spirit, dove, kiss.

257

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

love, and peace, which concepts were in turn all readily and early as-
sociated with the Holy Spirit. When, in the third century, St. Cyprian
sought to explain the propriety of the Holy Spirit's coining in or as a
dove, and the nature of the love the brethren should have for one
another, he had recourse to the belief that doves practice the unifying
kiss of peace: "So the Holy Spirit came in a dove. It is a simple and
happy animal, not bitter with gall, not cruel with its bites, not violent
with lacerating claws. . . . [Doves] spend their lives in mutual inter-
course, they recognize the concord of peace by the kiss of the beak;
they fulfill the law of unanimity in all things. This is the simplicity
which ought to be known in the Church ; this the charity to be attained,
that the love of the brethren imitate the doves."® In a similar vein St.
Augustine said that kissing doves are an image of the concord and
peace that the brethren should have in their relations with one another:
"simplicem se essere debere sicut columbam, habere cum fratribus
veram pacem quam significant oscula columbarum."^

One cannot fail to be struck by the way in which the Christian
writers, no less than Ovid, point to the example of doves to inculcate a
lesson of love which deals with the attainment of peace by way of
kisses. It is needless to spell out the different value that Christian and
pagan give to the same terms and images, but once again we may point
out that the "principle" involved is the same for both: the kiss is re-
conciliation, love, and peace.

With this background before us, we may now consider a second
type of the anthropo-zoomorphic Trinity, that which follows a hor-
izontal arrangement. In this type, which began in the late twelfth or
early thirteenth century, the Father and the Son are identical or only
slightly different and are shown seated side by side. The Son is on the
right of the Father in keeping with the verse of Psalm %og: "Dixit
Dominus Domino meo: sede a dextris meis.” Again the dove is por-
trayed as hovering or "proceeding" between them, and, as in the
vertical Trinity, sometimes uniting them mouth to mouth with the
tips of its wings. An example that is of particular interest to this dis-
cussion comes from a fourteenth-century miniature in the Petites
Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry (see fig. 23). Here we see that the Father
and the Son are also joined by a handclasp made with the right hand.
The dove is in a vertical position in its tail to bill direction, the bill
making contact with the clasped hands of Father and Son. A strong
horizontal line is also created by the dove's extended wings, the tips of

258

APPENDIX I

which go to (or proceed from) the mouths of the Father and Son.® This
representation then is highly suggestive of a conjugal union. The
dexirarum junctio, for example, was part of the early Christian nuptial
ceremony. Inherited by the Church from Greeks, Romans, and Jews, it
was used to signify the union of the marrying couple; its place in the
wedding ceremony, though not easily documented throughout the
centuries, was not lost.® Indeed, the joining of the right hands of
the couple is still common during religious wedding ceremonies. As to
the kiss, we have already amply noted its importance in the betrothal or
nuptial ceremony (see chapter i). Here we will only recall Tertullian's
reference to both the immixtio manuum and the kiss as part of
the pagan betrothal rite: "Si autem ad desponsationem velantur
[virgenes], quia et corpore et spiritu masculo mixtae sunt per osculum
et dexteras. . .

My point is, then, that the dove in these depictions of the Trinity
is first of all a breath symbol (spiratio), but one with a unique amatory
or affective value attached to it. This being so, in those cases where
it is made to join Father and Son mouth to mouth, we can hazard the
conclusion that a kiss of some kind is to be understood. In the course
of this book we have noted several examples in which the spiritual
kiss of union depends upon the concept of the real kiss as a means by
which two lovers become as one by mingling and joining their spirits
(breaths). But here I would also recall the Mexican pre-Columbian
depiction of the copulation of two gods or the original human couple
(see the Introduction and fig. 3). This picture has a striking resemblance
to our horizontal Trinity, specifically in the joining of hands (more
precisely the hand of one clasping the wrist of the other) and in the
"kiss." Here too the kiss is not shown as a direct labial conjunction,
but is indicated by means of what is apparently a breath symbol going
from mouth to mouth. It seems clear that in order to pictorialize the
idea of an exchange or union of breath-spirits via a kiss, some such
breath symbol is of the greatest advantage if not absolutely necessary.
In the Christian iconographical representations we have been consider-
ing, the dove is precisely that. Its truly exceptional advantage as a
breath symbol in the depiction of a kiss is its traditional association
with love and with the kiss itself.*®

259

APPENDIX II

Christian Elements and the ICiss
JVlotif in the Troubadour Lyric

Christian Elements in the Love Poetry of the Troubadours

The stressing of the Christian elenaents in the love poetry of the
troubadours has been undertaken by several critics in the present
century. Among the most significant studies in this direction are the
following: Ed. Wechssler, Das Kulturproblem des Minnesangs:
Studien zur Vorgeschichte der Renaissance, Bd. I, Halle a. S., 1909 (a
pioneer work which, for all its debatable points and exaggerations,
remains highly suggestive); D. Scheludko, "Religiose Elemente im
weltlichen Liebenslied der Trobadors," in Zeitschrift fiir franzdsiche
Sprache und Literatur, LIX (1935), 411 ff., and "Uber die Theorien
der Liebe bei den Trobadors," in Zeitschrift fiir romanische Philologie
LX (1940), 191-234 (in which the "religious" elements of the language
of Guillaume IX are studied. Augustinian and other Christian elements
are accentuated); Myrrhe Lot-Borodine, "Sur les origines et les fins
du Service d'Amour," in Melanges de linguisticjue et de litteratiire
offerts a M. Alfred feanroy, Paris, 1928, pp. 223-242 (an excellent
study despite the tendency to seek for the common source of mystics
and troubadours in the writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius); Guido
Errante, Marcahru e le fonti sacre dell'antica lirica romanza, Florence,
1948 (For Errante, too, troubadour love poetry is a transposition of
the expression of Christian motives but not of the motives themselves.
The singularity of his view is that he sees the poet Marcabru — who
except for Guillaume IX is the earliest of the troubadours we are able
to read — as the transmitter of this manner. Marcabru himself, says
Errante, sang not of courtly love but of amor Dei or caritas in conscious
opposition to amor mundi or cupiditas. The troubadours who followed
continued to use this religiously informed amatory language of
Marcabru — and also of Guillaume — but applied it only to their pro-
fane love, amor mundi, forgetful of the contrast caritas-cupiditas in
which it originated); D. Zorzi, Valeri religiosi della letteratura pro-

260

APPENDIX II

venzale: la spiritualita trinitaria, Milan, 1954 (not an inquiry into the
origins, but a study of special religious elements, chiefly in Provencal
poetry following the first and second generations of troubadours.
Nonetheless, the author goes far in demonstrating that the forma
mentis of the troubadours was distinctly Christian). A vigorous re-
buttal to the theory of filiation between Bernardine mysticism and
courtly love (especially as advanced by Wechssler) was made by
Etienne Gilson in The Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard (London,
1940), pp. 170-197. In general Gilson's arguments are, as usual,
cogent, but while granting that they are strong in repudiating the idea
of a specific, i.e., Bernardine, parentage, I do not find them definitive
in the overall question of Christian influence which they seek to under-
play and even deny.

In his criticism of any suggestion of an important likeness be-
tween divine love and troubadour love, E. Gilson insisted that "the
courtly poet, putting the problem of love between two beings of flesh
and blood, can conceive of purity only in the exclusion of all real union
between these beings, so that the purity of courtly love keeps the
lovers apart, while that of mystical love unites them." The Mystical
Theology, p. 193. Mme. Lot-Borodine also thought that was so and felt
that in addition to being one of the clearest marks of the distinction
between divine and courtly love, it proved that there could have been
no significant influence by the one on the other; "Une premiere differ-
ence les separe, assez imprevue et combien importante: tandis que I'un
connait le secret d'atteindre, procure I'apaisement, dans I'autre
I'equilibre se trouve rompu et le bonheur n'est plus qu'un mirage,
fuyant devant le coeur inassouvi. . . . C'est dans I'amour profane que
les deux termes — le sujet et I'objet de I'amour — tendait a s'eloigner
de plus en plus, tandis que dans I'amour divin, un rapprochement se
fait insensiblement, I'epouse devenant de plus en plus semblable a
I'epoux" ("Sur les origines . . .," in Melanges . . . Jeanroy, p. 234).

It seems to me that these eminent scholars have greatly exag-
gerated the differences between the two loves in this particular question
which they find so crucial. For my part I find a profound similarity
between the divine and the courtly lover on this matter. The differ-
ence is really once again in the beloved with whom one desires to be
united, but for both kinds of lover, love, whether it be caritas or
cupiditas, like the Eros of the Greeks drives one to seek union, even
fusion. Furthermore, mystic and courtly lover alike know both frus-

261

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

tration and fulfillment. In fact, we have seen (chapter 3) such authori-
tative Christians as Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, and Bernard of
Clairvaux insist that there is no complete attainment and that there is
no real end to desire. The perfection of joy is in the desire to seek the
face of the beloved evermore. Except for some rare moments of fore-
taste here and now, quiescence is, in the ultimate analysis, an escha-
tological reality. So too for courtly love, there is perhaps no better way
to refer to it than to say it is a dream of a paradisiacal bliss.

In his study Medieval Latin and the Rise of European Love Lyric,
I (Oxford, 1965), Peter Dronke criticizes those who would look for
the origins of courtly love, it being his contention that "the new feel-
nig" that critics have generally held to exist in the twelfth century
troubadours "is at least as old as Egypt of the second millenium B.C.,
and might occur at any time or place" (p. ix). This itself is not a new
idea, but Dronke has argued for it at length. His arguments, however,
and his concept of courtly love do not seem convincing to me. Few
scholars, 1 think, would be unwilling to acknowledge that, like soph-
istry, the sentiments of "romantic" and even "courtly love" have
existed in earlier times and in different climes. But leaving aside the
confusion that arises from the word origins, the problem of the forces
influencing or shaping the sentiments and specific coloring of courtly
love in the twelfth century, as thorny as it may be, cannot be an idle
matter.

I cannot go deeply into another of Dronke's principal assertions,
namely, that the feelings of adoration that the poets of courtly love
experience in connection with woman "imply that human and divine
love are not in conflict with each other, but on the contrary can be-
come identified" (p. 5). That some of the poets thought this to be so
and strove to make the identification may be true, but they could
never do so without the full awareness of the tension or conflict be-
tween caritas and cupiditas involved in the very attempt. Even Guini-
zelli's famous canzone, Al cor gentil, of which Dronke makes so much,
leaves the reader with a statement of the conflict rather than with its
resolution. It should not be difficult to see that a lady, however angel-
icized, cannot be a legitimate rival of God and the Virgin Queen of
Heaven, though a rival she may be. Precisely this question, incidental-
ly, is dealt with in the third chapter of Charles S. Singleton's Essay on
the Vita Nuova (Cambridge, 1949), a work which seems to have es-
caped Dronke's attention. But all this is not meant to belittle Dronke's

262

APPENDIX 11

study. In point of fact, I think he has made his own valuable contri-
bution to the kind of scholarship which he claims is fruitless — that
which points to the Christian patterns of thinking that influenced the
poetry of courtly love — although he could rightly protest that he has
done so not in order to indicate specific origins but rather to point to
some of the factors determining "the sophisticated and learned de-
velopment of courtois themes" (p. ix).

Some Pertinent Theories of the Origins of Courtly Love

In connection with the important place occupied by the kiss in
medieval amatory literature it is necessary to touch here on some
theories of the origins of courtly love that are pertinent to the present
study. The first is the proposal, advanced by Father Denomy, that
courtly love has its source in a specific work of Arab mysticism — a
Treatise on Love by Avicenna. Avicenna's treatise, which reflects a
certain current of Arab love metaphysics, puts forth a theory of a pure
and ennobling rational love between human lovers that has several
points of agreement with the troubadours' conception of fin' amors,
among them the idea that intercourse, being a desire arising from the
animal nature of man, is forbidden as impure and abominable, and
that love is right only when such animal desires are subdued; this is
because pure love consists in the union of the souls and hearts of the
lovers.' Now it is precisely the significance given to the kiss and em-
brace within this conception of pure love that is crucial in assessing
the similarity between the two concepts of love. Avicenna writes :

As for embracing and kissing, the purpose in them is to come near to
one another and to become united. The soul of the lover desires to
reach the object of his love with his senses of touch and sight, and thus
he delights in embracing it. And he longs to have the very essence of
his soul-faculty, his heart mingle with that of the object of his love,
and thus he desires to kiss it. However, feelings and actions of excessive
lust happen to follow them frequently, and this makes it necessary
that one should be on guard against them, except if the complete ab-
sence of physical appetite and immunity even from suspicion is beyond
doubt.^

Although it is not my aim here to offer a detailed critique of
Denomy's claim that the troubadours acquired their doctrine of pure
love from Avicenna's treatise, I must say that it seems to me highly

263

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

improbable that this could be so. For one thing, the notion of the kiss
as a vehicle for the union of souls or hearts is a thought which is pres-
ent in the earliest Christian exegetes of the Song of Songs. Moreover,
in connection with this question, I believe it is somewhat misleading
to say, as Denomy does, that fin' amors, in allowing the delights of
kissing and embracing (and of seeing and touching the beloved in
the nude), was encouraging "all that provokes and fans desire," that
fin' amors, in short, is "that doctrine of pure love which allows to the
lover any carnal solace short of consummation of his love."® It is An-
dreas who speaks of stopping short of a final solace, not the poets, at
least not those who precede him. My point is, as I have stated in
chapter 3, p. ia6, that in a number of cases the troubadours, far from
considering the kiss and embrace as a fanning of desire, think of these
intimacies as the terminus of their love, as the solace they desire, as
the attainment of that mysto-magical union of two in one that is the
ultimate aim of lovers. The particular character of the kiss motif in the
Provencal examples I have cited in chapter 3 (I believe they are the
most significant ones to be found in the earliest troubadours) is such
as to show us the poets of fin' amors considering the kiss in much the
same spirit as does the bride in the Christian reading of the Song. That
the troubadours could have known of the kiss conceit and other
mystico-erotic images from Avicenna and other Arabic (or Hispano-
Arabic) sources is certainly possible. Such a contact, however, could
have been contributory at best, not decisive, in the formulation of the
conceits and attitudes associated with courtly love. The more per-
vasive influence was the troubadours' own Christian heritage.

A second theory concerning the nature of courtly love that is
worth touching on here because of its bearing on the question of the
kiss is that which has been presented by Rene Nelli in his book
L'erotiqne des troubadours (Toulouse, 1963). Nelli's study, which em-
phasizes an ethno-sociological approach, is rich with valuable and
suggestive observations to which I cannot do justice here. The author
sees the conception of courtly love as the development of a relation-
ship between the sexes that is modeled on the nature and the rites of
male friendship found in primitive and advanced societies. "Chez tous
les peuples primitifs I'amitie et I'amour sont dans les memes rapports:
doctrinal et chronologique. C'est de I'amitie et non de la sexualite qu'est
issue I'amour epure, I'on peut affirmer, sans crainte de generaliser
indument qu'il ne s'est jamais eprouve comme tel, c'est a dire, comme

264

APPENDIX II

transcendant — ou meme refusant — le fait charnel, qu'apres avoir
emprunte a I'amitie masculine, prealablement idealisee, ses mythes et
ses rites, et s'etre, pour ainsi dire, greffee sur elle" (p. 277). Such bonds
of friendship are made or solemnized among primitive peoples by
means of various rites, one of which is an incision allowing two men
to exchange blood. This is the establishment of blood brotherhood. At
times, in place of the exchange of blood, the rite of brotherhood con-
sists of an exchange of saliva or perhaps of breath. Nelli suggests that
in the medieval tradition of courtly love the interchange of blood by
an incision (the prototype of the eventual idea or myth of the exchange
of hearts) was replaced, under the influence of women, by a kiss, per-
haps in imitation of the kiss exchanged by medieval knights in those
ceremonies where a bond of comradeship was established.'* "11 etait
inevitable que dans I'affrerement erotique les incisions fussent rem-
placees — peut-etre sous I'influence des femmes — par le baiser qui est
naturellement plus galant et qui, d'ailleurs, avait ete deja adopte comme
rite d'union par les compagnons eux-memes; inevitable aussi que les
troubadours — du fait que I'amour etait reste tributaire, dans le monde
arabe et en Occident, de son expression poetique — missent surtout
Taccent, dans le temps qu'il passait du libertinage chevaleresque a
I'idealisme courtois, sur les metaphores du coeur. De toute fa^on ce
qui s'imposait a I'imagination des femmes, quand elles pensaient
kamour pur (en tant qu'il conditionnait pour elles les relations sexuel-
les), c'etait le 'phantasme' de la fusion des coeurs plutot que celui du
melange des sangs : il etait doue, a leurs yeux, d'une veritable efficacite
operatoire" (p. 314).

That the progressive "purification" of the troubadour love was
the result of a changing attitude in the relationship between the sexes,
namely the raising of the lady to a rank in which she qualified for
"friendship" with a male on equal terms is, I think, only part of the
story. In this respect we may call to mind an analogous but much
earlier development in the erotic attitudes of Catullus and the Roman
elegists of "personal" poetry. In a short but rich article written in
1945, Luigi Alfonsi pointed to the borrowings made by Catullus,
Propertius, and Tibullus of a number of concepts and images from the
language of male friendship (in particular as found in Cicero) which
the elegists transposed to the description of their amatory relationship
with a woman. In this process, for all the sensuality that remained in
their love, the Roman elegists were contributing to an idealization of

265

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

woman.® In considering Catullus to be the originator of the new ama-
tory attitude, Kenneth Quinn writes ; “In his poetry, and in some way
also in actual experience, Catullus became involved in a kind of love
that, in his view of it, transcended the usual pattern, that lifted him
out of the circle of amici into a more deeply passionate relationship
with a woman who, because he wanted her as his intellectual com-
panion as well, gave shape to a new conception of a kind of amor that
could also be amicitia."^

That something along these lines took place in the development
of medieval love poetry is, I think, certainly true. But the situation is
more complex than that. The fact is that medieval amatory poetry re-
veals that what the poets really needed and what they created was a
creature approximating or possessing the character of a divinity. It is no
accident that the cult of the Virgin and the idealization of the lady in
profane love were contemporaneous developments and that they
should have had a reciprocal influence. (The question of precedence is
a moot one.) Both reflect the need and offer something of an answer
to the need that for so long had been felt in the Christian world for a
female element in the Divinity. As an offshoot of the religion of the
Hebrews, Christianity inherited the strong patriarchal and masculine-
centered concepts of Judaism regarding God. The Virgin and, to a
lesser degree, Sophia notwithstanding, the fundamental lack of a fe-
male deity that Christians could adore perhaps facilitated the idealiza-
tion of woman. At any rate, both the cult of the Virgin and that of
woman were to continue side by side down through the centuries, and
in doing so, the two principals were to be rivals.

In returning to Nelli's views, one can also object to the exces-
sive importance the author gives to woman as an active agent in de-
termining the nature of courtly love. The latter, in the final analysis,
was so dominantly a masculine “invention" that even the “diviniza-
tion" of the lady can almost be considered a by-product of the true
center of its love psychology, which was an awareness, cultivation, and
exaltation of the male's own capacity for loving. As to what Nelli says
about the use of the kiss as part of the rite by which a medieval lady
and her lover sealed a spiritual union, I would agree that there is a
connection between it and the “primitive" idea of the kiss as a joining
of breaths which establishes a union. But it is puzzling to me that the
author should so completely neglect any reference to the Christian
symbolism of the mystic kiss and the kiss of the Song of Songs in the

266

APPENDIX 11

sacred and secular poetry of the age. It is clear that he is interested
more in a "ceremony" which allegedly took place than in the trouba-
dours' own allusions to the kiss. He does not, in fact, discuss the lyrics
in which they refer to kisses.'^

The playing down or even the neglect of Christian elements and,
we may add, of the classico-Christian theme of amicitia as influences
in the development of courtly love constitutes, for me, a defect in
Nelli's otherwise very valuable book. On the other hand, the author
is in at least partial agreement with the proponents of the Arabic
origins of courtly love. According to him the most significant themes
that make up the common substance of Arabic and Provencal love are
"la theorie du coeur separable et de I'echange des coeurs, la surestima-
tion de la femme, la soumission absolue de I'amant a sa dame, I'exalta-
tion du long desir et I'idee de mort-par-amour" (p. 52). In a note Nelli
rightly observes that these characteristics were not exclusively Arabic
and that they can be found (at times only in a germinal state) in all
sufficiently advanced societies. However, he says, "Nous les appelons
arabes parce que c'est sous I'influence de ces conquerants et dans
I'Espagne musulmane qu'ils ont ete formulas avec le plus de precision
et le mieux 'valorises,' en un temps [X-XP siecles] ou, en Occident, ils
n'avaient encore aucune existence 'sodale' " (p. 52, n. 80). Now all
the characteristics Nelli speaks of are an integral part of Christianity.
All, that is, with the exception of the presence of the lady as the be-
loved. (I leave aside the question of the cult of the Virgin.) But that
is just what the profanation in Provencal love is about; the lady has
usurped the place that belongs to God. The motif of the separability,
movement, or exchange of the hearts of lovers which is considered
central by Nelli was, we have seen, a commonplace in Christian think-
ing. "Inquietum est cor nostrum donee requiescat in te," said Augus-
tine. And St. Anselm of Canterbury wrote: "Ecce, domine, coram te
est cor meum. Conatur, sed per se non potest. Admitte me intra cubi-
culum amoris tui. Peto, quaero, pulso" {Meditatio 3, ending, in Opera
omnia, III, Edinburgh, 1946). The Johannine Gospel has such mystic
expressions referring to mutual indwelling as "qui manet in me et ego
in eo" (15:5) and "qui manducat meam carnem et bibit meum san-
guinem, in me manet et ego in illo" (6: 57).

If it is true that many of the amatory conceits and attitudes of
courtly love occur before troubadour poetry in the Arabs (both in the
mystic writings of the Muslims and in the eleventh century Hispano-

267

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Moorish court poets), it is also true, by Nelli's own admission, that
they do not appear significantly in Provencal poetry until 1130 and
after. And that is at a time when such conceits and attitudes were re-
ceiving full and renewed expression in the words of Christian mystics
and exegetes. As a matter of historical fact, such conceits were part of
a Christian tradition that preceded and even influenced early Islam
mysticism. In itself this would not exclude a later counterinfluence
upon the West from the Arabic sources. But are we to assume also that
twelfth century Christian mystics were influenced by Islam's erotic
mysticism? Regarding the troubadours, Nelli is really at a loss to ex-
plain the presence of the sentiments of courtly love in the poets. "Ainsi
done, si I'erotique d'oc a suivi a peu pres le meme destin que I'erotique
arabe, elle n'en est pas, pour autant, la copie pure et simple. Elle a du
evoluer pour la rejoindre. Elle resulte d'un long effort pour faire cadrer
les concepts fournis par I'Espagne musulmane avec le renouvellement
progressif de la sensibilite, car on pent importer directement des
modeles poetiques mais non point des sentiments" (pp. 62-63). Just
so. But where should these sentiments have come from if not from the
very heart of Christian spirituality itself, a tradition which made avail-
able to the poets both the sentiments and the erotico-religious conceits
by which they were expressed?

Another theory concerning the nature of troubadour love which
would seek to capitalize on the role of the kiss as part of its argument
is that which considers troubadour love poetry to be a veiled allegory
of the beliefs of the Cathar heresy. "The ring of gold or the single kiss
the lady grants the poet is his consolement — a reflection of the kiss of
peace exchanged at the ceremony of final entrance of a heretic into the
Catharist church — the consolamentum."^ This is a far-fetched theory.
As for the kiss of peace, its place in the religious ceremonies of the
medieval Church of Rome was still widespread and of a solemn nature.
The medieval penitentials, for example, indicate that one of the cere-
monies marking the re-entry of a penitent into the Church was the
kiss of peace. We may also recall here that among the ceremonies as-
sociated with the contract of vassalage was the osculum which sealed
the obligations made by lord and vassal. In this ceremony it was the
lord who conferred the kiss. In the love-service ritual, when the lady
finally consented to accept the suppliant lover as her faithful man, the
act of amatory homage was modeled on the ceremony of the feudal
contract of vassalage. The oath of service and homage made by the

268

APPENDIX II

drut (faithful love-servant) was solemnized by a kiss from the lady.

Another study to be mentioned here is Moshe Lazar's Amour
courtois et fin' amors (Paris, 1964). The characterization of fin' amors
offered by Lazar appears untenable to me. Speaking of the trouba-
dours and specifically of their conception of fin' amors, he writes:
"Quels que soient les sentiments et les idees que le poete exprime, ils
viennent tourner en fin de compte autour d'une seule et meme exige-
ance: la recompense finale, c'est a dire le rendez-vous, le baiser, 'et le
reste': del sorplus, comme dit le troubadour" (p. 66). And again, after
his analysis of a few poems, I find he is quite unjustified in stating that
the troubadours, without exception, seek to go beyond the kiss and em-
brace and to obtain "the rest": "Passer la nuit aupres de la dame
devetue, dans I'intimite de son alcove; caresser sa peau blanche: baiser
et etreindre son noble corps: demander a la dame de ne pas etre par-
cimonieuse 'del plus,' — telles sont les expressions caracteristiques du
desir amoureux que tous les troubadours, sans exception, nous present-
ent chacun dans le style qui lui est propre" (p. 133). Lazar denies any
spiritual value to troubadour love in any case, and he seems to have
been led to this position as a result of a not very cogent argument
against the idea of the existence of any connection at all between the
troubadour love-lyric and Christianity.

269

Holes

[The abbreviations PL and PG indicate J. P. Migne's Patrologiae cursus com-
pletus, Series Latina and Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Graeca; Num-
bers refer to volume and column.]

Introduction

1 . A complete history of the kiss in general, that is, a history of its various
manifestations in life and in literature, would constitute a project of no small
length. The studies known to me that ostensibly have such an end are, for
the most part, rather amorphous and fall far short of fulfilling the promise
of their titles. This is particularly true of one of the latest books on the sub-
ject, E. Scerbo's II bacio nel costume e nei secoli (Rome, 1963), pp. 255, its
division into twenty-three short chapters notwithstanding. The same is to
be said of Christopher Nyrop's The Kiss and its History, trans. Wm. F.
Harvey (London, 1901), and of an anonymous nineteenth century French
study of which only three hundred copies were printed: Le basier: etude
litteraire et historicjue (Nancy, 188?). Such studies inevitably end up being
a collection of random references with incidental digressions on topics rang-
ing from the life of the Greek hetaerae to homosexual love. The longest ex-
patiation on the kiss is without doubt a seventeenth century work, Martin
von Kempen's Opus Polyhistoricum, dissertationibus XXV de osculis, siib-
nexisque de Judae ingenio, vita et fine, sacris epiphyllidibus, absolutum, etc.
(Frankfurt, 1680). This is an incredible volume of 1040 pages. The seven-
teenth and early eighteenth centuries saw several studies on the kiss, with a
special emphasis on the use of the kiss in Christian rites. In general the most
rewarding studies on the kiss are those that have limited themselves to a
specific usage or idea connected with the kiss. Such a work is Karl-Martin
Hofmann's Philema Hagion, Beitrage zur Forderung christlicher Theologie,
2 Reihe, 38 Band, Giitersloh, 1938. My first chapter is indebted to Hofmann's
study for some leads if not for its method and ultimate scope. At the end of
the present volume the reader will find a selective bibliography of works
bearing on the nature and history of the kiss.

2. P. d'Enjoy, "Le baiser en Europe et en Chine," Bulletin de la Societe
d' Anthropologie, IV® Serie, VIII (1897), 181 ff.

3. Sigmund Freud "The Sexual Aberrations," in Three Essays on the
Theory of Sexuality, trans. and ed. James Strachey (New York, Avon Library
Book, 1965), p. 38. My italics.

4. Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex: Sexual Selection in
Man (Philadelphia, 1914), Appendix A, p. 215.

271

NOTES TO PAGES 2-5

5. Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, ed. James B.
Pritchard, 2d ed. (Princeton, 1955), p. 383. On the sense of taste in the erotic
kiss, one may confidently read Th. H. Van de Velde's classic treatment of
Ideal Marriage, trans. Stella Browne (New York, 1941, 1962), pp. 134-153.
Van de Velde observes that "This is a factor [i.e., taste] which most people
fail definitely to perceive, and there are only very few connoisseurs who can
discriminate and describe the individual flavour of their beloved's kisses"
(p. 134). The true poets, we know, are precisely those who are gifted far
beyond the average man in matters of intuition and sensory perception.
Pages 132-161 of Van de Velde's work constitute the sanest and most salu-
tarily uninhibited treatment known to me on the physiology and technique of
the erotic kiss.

6. Robert Briffault, The Mothers: A Study of the Origins of Sentiments
and Institutions (New York, 1927), I, 120. In a note (no. 6) to this quote,
Briffault writes: "Liking, or judging a thing to be 'good' is throughout the
greater part of the biological scale equivalent to regarding it as 'good to eat.'
All other forms of attraction, of desire, are derivatives of that primary value.
That fundamental value is never entirely obliterated."

7. The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia (New York,
1929)/ p- 333 -

8. Meditations sur I’Evangile: Sermons de Notre-Seigneur, XX/V® journee,
in Oeuvres completes de Bossuet, VI (Paris, 1862), 369.

9- Denique cum membris conlatis flore fruuntur

Aetatis, iam cum praesagit gaudia corpus
Atque in eos Venus ut muliebria conserat arva,

Adfigunt avide corpus iunguntque salivas
Oris et inspirant pressantes dentibus ora,

Ne quiquam, quoniam nihil inde abradere possunt
Nec penetrare et abire in corpus corpore toto;

Nam facere inter dum velle et certare videntur.

De rerum natura (IV, 1103-1112)

This Lucretian description is to be compared to what Malinowski says about
the erotic mouth play of his Melanesian savages. But an even more exact
parallel to the latter may be read in four lines from the poem "Dolores" by
the decadently primeval Swinburne:

By the ravenous teeth that have smitten.

Through the kisses that blossom and bud.

By the lips intertwisted and bitten.

Till the foam has a savour of blood.

10. R. Mukerjee, The Flowering of Indian Art (New York, 1964), p. 189.

11. Mircea Eliade, Le Yoga immortalite et liberte (Paris, 1954), p. 267.

12. Hebrew scholars interpret the biblical text to say either into man's

272

NOTES TO PAGES 5-6

nostrils or into man's face. The Septuagint speaks of God's breathing into
man's face, as does the Latin Vulgate version. This allows more easily for
the idea of the kiss. Indeed, even within the Jewish rabbinical tradition the
episode is referred to as a kiss. It is said to be one of the two kisses that God
gives man. This one is "the kiss in this world"; the kiss in the hereafter is
promised in these words from Ezechiel 37:12-14: "I mean to open your
graves and revive you, my people . . . Will you doubt, then, the Lord's power,
when I open your graves and revive you? When I breathe my spirit into you,
to give you life again." See: Shir Hashirim Zuta, ch. 1, T. S. 21, 144.

In connection with such breath-power or miracle-working of "spirit," we
may also note the account of one of the greatest miracles performed by
Elisius : the restoring of life to the dead son of the woman of Sunam, recorded
in IV Kings 4:32-35. This miracle is effected by a mouth-to-mouth resuscita-
tion, a method of reviving persons at death's door which is, in fact, popularly
known as the "kiss of life." I have already referred (see p. 2) to the early
Babylonian hymn that speaks of the source of life as being in the mouth of
the great goddess Ishtar. I may mention here a remarkable episode from the
ancient Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. The hunter exhorts the "harlot-lass"
to welcome the savage-like Enkidu:

There he is, O lass! Free thy breasts.

Bare thy bosom that he may possess thy ripeness!

Be not bashful! Welcome his ardor!

The key phrase here, "Welcome his ardor," literally says "Welcome his
breath," the word being na-pis’su, which is repeated soon after in the same
expression: "She was not bashful as she welcomed his ardor." What is
actually involved here is a hierogamotic rite in which one may picture a kiss
preceding or accompanying the ritual coition. Significantly, when it is over
Enkidu has been transfigured. The harlot says to him: "Thou art wise,
Enkidu, art become like a god." Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the
Old Testament, ed. James B. Pritchard, 2d ed. (Princeton, 1955), p. 73. The
episode is recorded in Tablet I, iv, of the epic. An ancient Egyptian Hymn to
Amon-Re alludes to the myth that the gods came into being from the spittle
of the supreme god, Amon-Re, creator and sustainer of life. See in Ancient
Near Eastern Texts . . . , p. 366. On the matter of the connection made in the
Old Testament between the respiration of man and God's "breath," a number
of parallels in Babylon and Egypt have been noted by Paul van Imschoot in
"L'esprit de Yahweh, source de vie dans TAncien Testament," Revue
Biblicjue, IV (October, 1935), 481—501, but see esp. pp. 492-496.

13. Wilhelm Wundt, V olkerpsychologie, IV, Part I (Leipzig, 1920), 133.
This work is to be consulted on the whole question of the breath-soul and
primitive ideas on spittle, blood, and the wanderings of the soul.

14. The scene of this copulating couple is found in the pictographic manu-
script known as the Codex Borgia. It is reproduced in color in the recent
Spanish translation of Eduard Seler's Comentarios al Codice Borgia, III
(Mexico 12, D.F., 1963), PI. 61.

273

NOTES TO PAGES 6-8

The nature of the couple and the scene is not without question. Eduard
Seler, whose interpretation of the Codex Borgianus is still generally accepted
as the most authoritative, considered the nude pair to be the first human
couple and the "blood" symbol passing from the mouth of the male to that
of the woman to be a sign of the mixture of blood and the vital energies.
Eduard Seler, Codex Borgia: Eine altmexicanische Bilderschrift der Bibliotek
der Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, II (Berlin, 1906), 212. More recently
C. A. Borland speaks of the scene as a couple, male and female, "with
tongues joined together symbolizing sexual intercourse. The man has a ball of
incense to show the holiness of the act." The Gods of Mexico (New York,
Capricorn Books), p. 204 and fig. 6d.

Now in point of fact there are no features that clearly distinguish the
couple as male and female, whereas in the Codex Borgia representations of
the female figure are invariably made clear by anatomical features. The scene
could conceivably be a depiction of the god of life (or sustainer of life) —
distinguished as a god by the headdress — infusing the blood-spirit of life into
man.

15. A picture of this may be seen in Charles Waldemar, Magie der
Geschlechter (Munich, 1958), PI. LXVI. In connection with such scenes, we
may note in passing that one of the earliest representations of the kiss be-
tween man and woman is to be found among the Iberian stone reliefs dis-
covered at Osuna, Spain. The piece, dating from the fourth to the second
century b.c. and now in the Madrid National Archaeological Museum, is un-
related to anything else from Osuna, and one cannot be sure of the exact
nature or intent of this kiss. The busts of a man and woman are seen in pro-
file. Contact between them is made at the breast, and their faces meet in a
light mouth-to-mouth kiss (Fig. 4).

16. James Frazer, The Belief in Immortality . . . , II (London, 1922), 11.

17. Christopher Nyrop, The Kiss and its History, p. 182.

18. The Creek Anthology with an English Translation, ed. W. R. Paton
(Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1930), p. 168.

19. "The Soul in the Kiss," in The Criterion, II (April, 1924), 349 - 359 .

20. See Franz Cumont, After Life in Roman Paganism (New York, Dover
Publications, 1959), p. 59. Also, Richard Broxton Onians, The Origins of
European Thought (Cambridge, Eng., 1951), pp. 172-173.

21. There seems little doubt that Gaselee took the passage from Burton's
book, which also gives examples from Petronius and Aulus Gellius. In the
body of his text Burton gives the Castiglione passage in English: "They
breathe out their souls and spirits together with their kisses, saith Balthasar
Castilio; change hearts and spirits, and mingle affections as they do kisses;
and it is rather a connexion of the minde than of the body" (Partition Three,
Section Two, Member III, Subsection IV, where Burton is speaking of the

274

NOTES TO PAGES 8-16

artificial aillurements involved in love^ and, at this point, particularly of the
role of kissing). Burton's Castiglione reference is not exact. Since the im-
portant page on the kiss in the Book of the Courtier must be analyzed in its
context, an effort to do so is made in chapter 4 of the present study.

22. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. W. R. Trask
(New York, 1953), p. 292.

23. James Hutton, The Greek Anthology in Italy to the Year 1800 (Ithaca,
1935)/ 3nd The Greek Anthology in France and in the Latin Writers of the
Netherlands to the Year 1800 (Ithaca, 1946).

24. Wilhelm Bolsche, Love-Life in Nature: The Story of the Evolution of
Love, trans. from the German by Cyril Brown, ed. Norman Haire (London,
1931)/ P- 520.

1. The Early Christian Centuries

1. Old Testament references to the kiss are found in the following pas-
sages: Genesis 27:27; 29:11; 29:13; 31:28; 31:55; 33:4 (the reconciliation
and kiss of Jacob and Esau); Exodus 4:27 (Aaron and Moses greeting each
other with a kiss); 18:7 (the kiss accompanied by words of peaceful wel-
come); Ruth 1:9; 1:14; I Kings 20:41 (the kiss of affection between David
and Jonathan); II Kings 19:39-40; 20:9; Proverbs 27:6; Song of Songs 1:1;
8:1; Tobias 7:7; 10:12; 11:11.

2. The use of the kiss to conceal a treacherous act is found in the Old
Testament at II Kings 20:9; and at Proverbs 27:6 it is written: "Better the
love that scourges, than hate's false kiss." The New Testament references
to the kiss of Judas are in Matthew 26:48-50, in Mark 14:44-46, and in
Luke 22:48 where the words of Jesus to Judas are "Judas, wouldst thou be-
tray the Son of Man with a kiss?"

3. The references occur in the following Epistles: Romans 16:16; I Corin-
thians 16:20; II Corinthians 13:12; I Thessalonians 5:26; I Peter 5:14.

4. Paul's Epistles refer to the "holy kiss," whereas the Petran Epistle speaks
(in the original Greek) of a "kiss of love." But it is the same kiss and the
same custom that is intended. The holy kiss is a kiss of love (charity).

5. See also Romans 8:9; II Timothy 1:14; Ephesians 2:22.

6. Philo, Questions and Answers on Exodus, translated from the Ancient
Armenian Version of the Original Greek by Ralph Marcus (London; Cam-
bridge, Mass., 1933), pp. 128, 169.

7. F. C. Conybeare, "New Testament Notes," in The Expositor, 4th series,
IX (London, 1894), 460-462.

8. See Erwin R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period,
VIII (New York, Bollingen Series, XXXVII, 1958), 12-13.

275

NOTES TO PAGES 16-19

g. Hugo Rahner writes on the relationship between the mystery religions
and Christianity in respect to cultic practices; "Many elements that were
formerly declared to be direct borrowings from the mystery cults entered
into Christian life through the cultural heritage held in common with the
Greeks. It was the same with the cultic words and usages with which the
Greeks fashioned their mysteries ; here, too, symbols were formed of elements
taken from everyday life. . . . The use of identical and similar words, gestures,
rites in the Christian and the Hellenistic cults does not imply derivation of
one from the other but a common source in domestic and civil life." In
Pagan and Christian Mysteries: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, ed.
Joseph Cambell (New York, Harper Torchbooks, 1963), p. 173. As for the
kiss, it is clear that both the Palestinian and Greek worlds knew it in its
several functions.

10. Plutarch's Moralia, VI, with an English translation by W. C. Helmbold
(London; Cambridge, Mass., Loeb Classical Library, 1939), 303.

11. Apology, I, 65; in PG 6, 427. A little later Origen also noted that it
was a practice to exchange the kiss after prayers in the Church (PG 14,
1282). Tertullian refers to the kiss as a "signaculum orationis," a signal for
the prayer (De oratione XVIII), PL 1, 1176.

12. "Martyrdom without mysticism is impossible. That martyrdom is not
just asceticism, but also mysticism, is implied in the fact that in the martyr
ecstasy is realized to the full extent. He steps completely out of this life to
unite himself with God." Anselm Stolz, O. 5 .B., The Doctrine of Spiritual
Perfection, trans. Aidan Williams, O.S.B., S.T.D. (St. Louis and London,
1948), p. 213. St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of martyrdom as "maximae
charitatis signum," a sign of the greatest love, and says that its perfection
necessitates the suffering of death (Summa Theol. II-II, q. 124, a. 3-4).

13. TJte Passion of S. Perpetua, newly edited from the MSS. with an Intro-
duction and Notes by J. Armitage Robinson (Cambridge, 1891), p. 93.

14. Apostolic Tradition, 4; 18; 21. The most trustworthy edition of this
precious work which offers many difficult textual problems is La Tradition
Apostolique de Saint Hippolyte, Essai de Reconstitution par Dom Bernard
Botte, O. 5 .B., in the series Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschun-
gen. Heft 39, Munster Westfalen, 1963. For the places we have referred to,
see pp. 10-11; 40-41; 54-55. There is also the important English version
with critical appraisal by the Rev. Gregory Dix, The Treatise on the Apostolic
Tradition of St. Hippolytus of Rome (London, 1937), pp. 6, 29, 39.

15. Sermo XLII (De Elisaeo, II). Sermoncs suposititios, in PL 39, 1830. We
shall see that S. Bernard of Clairvaux was also to adapt the kiss image to
the Johannine passage.

16. St. Augustine was fond of confronting the two insufflations. In one
place he does so in order to show that the resurrected Christ who breathed

276

NOTES TO PAGES 19-20

the Holy Spirit into the disciples is the same God the Creator who breathed
the spirit of life into the first man. As God vivified and gave a soul to Adam
whom he had first fashioned out of slime, so Christ gave the Spirit to the dis-
ciples that they could come forth from the slime of the world : "Et insufflavit
in faciem eorum, qui flatu primum hominem vivificavit, et de limo erexit, quo
flatu animam membris dedit; significans eum se esse, qui insufflavit in faciem
eorum, ut a luto exsurgerent, et luteis operibus renuntiarent." In Joannis
Evangelium, Tractatus XXXII, 6; in Oeuvres complies de Saint Augustin, IX
(Paris, 1869), p. 602. The two biblical insufflations are also the subject of
Book XIII, chapter 24 of The City of God. There Augustine explains that
Genesis 2 :y speaks not of the transmission of the Holy Spirit to man but re-
fers rather to the infusion of the rational soul by God in man.

In connection with this (and the kiss image) there comes to mind Dante's
description of the direct infusion of the rational or spiritual soul by God
into each human embryo (which has been fashioned by God's child. Nature) :

Apri alia verita che viene il petto;

E sappi che, si tosto come al feto
Particular del cerebro e perfetto,

Lo motor primo a lui si volge lieto
Sovra tant'arte di natura, e spira
Spirito novo di vertii repleto.

{Purgatorio, XXV, 67-72)

Here then is the picture of God the Creator bending affectionately over the
human creature (be it yet an embryo) and insufflating into it the soul. Dante's
image and the very words spira and spirito reveal that he had the Vulgate
of Genesis 2:7 in mind: "Inspiravit in faciem eius spiraculum vitae."

17. Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History, I, with an English translation by
Kirsopp Lake (London and New York, Loeb Classical Library), 126-127.

18. The Odes of Solomon were discovered in 1909 by J. Rendel Harris.
Written in Syriac, an Aramaic dialect, they are a product of the second
century. The definitive study with an accompanying literal translation
(English) of the Odes remains that of J. Rendel Harris and Alphonse Mingana
in two volumes which appeared in 1916 and 1920: The Odes and Psalms of
Solomon (Manchester, England). The translation is reprinted in The Oldest
Christian Hymn-Book, Introduction by Michael Maryosip (Temple, Texas,
1948).

19. Hans-Martin Schenke, "Das Evangelium nach Philippus," Theologische
Literaturzeitung, 84 (1959), n. 1, 1-5. This preface is followed by Schenke's
German translation of the Gospel of Philip from the Coptic. Schenke's was
the first modern translation of Philip. Though the Coptic manuscript dates
from around a.d. 400, the lost Greek original is thought to be of the second
or third century. For a discussion of the discovery of the Coptic manuscript
and for the present views on the document, see the work referred to in the
next note.

277

NOTES TO PAGES 20-23

20. The Gospel of Philip, translated from the Coptic text by R. McL.
Wilson (London, 1962), pp. 34-35. The numerical division into "sayings"
was first made by Schenke in his German translation.

21. Ibid., pp. 39-40.

22. "Das Evangelium nach Philippus," p. 5.

23. Five Books of S. Irenaeus Against Heresies, trans. Rev. John Keble
(Oxford and London, 1877), p. 41.

24. "Alexander the False Prophet," 41. In Lucian, with an English Trans-
lation by A. M. Harmon, IV (London and New York, Loeb Classical Library,
1925), 229.

23. The Pistis Sophia, which is a miscellany of several documents, purports
to reveal an esoteric learning given by Jesus after the Resurrection to Apostles
and women disciples. It has been preserved in a Coptic manuscript. Author-
ship and dates of the various parts are questions that are still debated. How-
ever, there seems to be general agreement that the first document — in which
our kiss image occurs — is of the second or third centuries. See the intro-
duction by F. Legge in Pistis Sophia, literally translated from the Coptic by
George Horner (London, 1924), pp. vii-xlviii. For the episode of the kiss
between Jesus and the Holy Spirit in this edition, see pp. 39-60. There ex-
ists a highly regarded German translation in Carl Schmidt, Koptisch-
gnostische Schriften, I Bd (Leipzig, 1903). For the kiss passage, see the recent
reprint of this work edited by W. Till (Berlin, 1954), p. 78.

26. From The Discourse of Theodosius, in The Apocryphal New Testa-
ment, being the Apocryphal Gospels, Acts, and Apocalypses, with other
Narratives and Fragments Newly Translated by Montague Rhodes James
(Oxford, 1924; corrected edition 1953), p. 199.

27. The question of the place and manner of the kiss in the liturgy is com-
plex, and to speak of it would be to fill these pages with minutiae that are
important in their own right but really outside my main concern. It is not
easy to determine when the kiss was given on the mouth. Some rites pre-
scribed the kiss as an oscidum oris into the Middle Ages. On the other hand,
the kiss or pax eventually was reduced to a mild embrace occasionally ac-
companied by a touching of the cheeks. At the same time, outside the liturgy
the kiss tended to become restricted to meetings between the highest ec-
clesiastical dignitaries or noble personages. An interesting development in
the ceremony of the liturgical kiss was the introduction in the thirteenth
century first in England and soon after on the Continent — of the oscid-
atorium or pax board, a plaque bearing a painted or graven image of Christ
or of some other holy and symbolical figures. Because this could be kissed
by all, the laity was once again made to participate in the kiss of peace.
Gradually, however, the imparting of the kiss in this way also ceased. For
particulars on these and other matters concerning the liturgical use of the

278

NOTES TO PAGES 23-28

kiss, the following may be consulted: F. Cabrol, "Baiser," in DicHonnaire
d' archeologie chretienne et de liturgie (fasc. XII), Vol. II, Part I (Paris, 1907),
Cols. 117-130; Dom Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy (Glasgow, 1943),
pp. 103-110; Joseph A. Jungmann, S.J., The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its
Origins and Development, translated by Francis A. Brunner, C.S.S.R., II
(New York, 1933), 321-332.

28. Catechetical Lecture, XXIII, 3. From The Catechetical Lectures of Saint
Cyril (Oxford, 1839), pp. 273-274. See PC 33, 1112.

29. Sermo CCXXVII (In die Paschae, IV) ; in Oeuvres completes de Saint
Augustin, XVIII (Paris, 1872), 190.

30. Sermo CCIV (In Epiphania Domini, VI); in Oeuvres completes, XVIII,
100.

■yr. Miscellanea Agostiniana: testi e studi pubhlicati a cura dell'ordine
eremitano di S. Agostino . . . , I, Sermones post Maurinos Reperti (Rome,
1930), 31.

32. Sermo CCLXVII, 4 (In die Pentecostes, I); Oeuvres completes, XVIII,
377-

33. The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, III, 3, 8; in PC 3, 437. In keeping with
Christ's command that the faithful love one another, Christians insisted on
the necessity of love and unity in order to approach Christ. To love others
is to love Christ. To be with Christ who is the Head, one must be united
by love to all who are the body. For this reason Augustine somewhere com-
pares the desire to come to Christ without this all-embracing love to the
desire of one who would kiss the head of a beloved while treading on his
feet.

34. On Compunction, I, 3; in PC 47, 398.

33. Baptismal Instructions, trans. Paul W. Harkins (Westminster, Md. and
London, 1963), pp. 171-172. The passage is from the Eleventh Instruction,
the original of which was published by A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus in a rare
Russian series of the former University of St. Petersburg: Varia graeca sacra.
Sbornik greceskikh neisdannikh bogoslovskikh tekstov I-IV vekov (St.
Petersburg, 1909), pp. 134-183.

36. "Homily 44 on the First Epistle to Corinthians," in PC 61, •yj6.

37. "Homily 30 on the Second Epistle to Corinthians," in PC 61, 606.

38. Loc. cit.

39. Baptismal Instructions, p. 172.

40. Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, II, vii (Ivii). In The Ante-Nicene
Fathers, ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, VII (Buffalo, 1886), 422.

41. "Magnum sacramentum osculum pads: sic osculare, ut diligas. Ne sis

279

NOTES TO PAGES 28-31

ludas; ludas traditor Christum ore osculabatur, corde insidiabatur." Miscel-
lanea Agostiniana, I, Sermones post Maurinos Reperti (Rome, 1930), 31-52.

42. Epistola 41 (Prater sorori); in PL 16, 1164-1165.

43. Hexaemeron, VI, ix, 68. In Bibliotheca Patrum Ecclesiasticorum
Latinorum Selecta, IX, pars II (Leipzig, 1840), 180. In the text I have used
the translation by John J. Savage in Hexameron, Paradise, and Cain and Abel
(New York, 1961), p. 278.

44. PG 6, 964. The passage occurs in a context in which Athenagoras is
replying to the charge of incest brought against the Christians.

45. PG 8, 660-661. The English translation used is from The Ante-Nicene
Fathers, ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, II (Buffalo, 1885), 291. The dangers
in kissing (between the sexes) were evidently always present. In the ninth
century, Amalarius of Metz also admonished his flock that when the Pax
is to be given at the Mass, the men are not to kiss the women and vice versa
for fear that unholy carnal desires be aroused. De Ecclesiasticus officiis, in PE
105, 1153 A-B.

The comparison that Clement made between the sting of certain spiders
and licentious kisses calls to mind a similar judgment made by Socrates when
the latter pointed to the dangers that lurk in the kiss. The episode is recorded
by Xenophon in the Memorabilia (I, iii, 11-13): "Unhappy man!" exclaimed
Socrates, "and what do you think that you incur by kissing a handsome
person [youth] ? Do you not expect to become at once a slave ... 7 And to
be compelled to pursue what not even a madman would pursue?" "By Her-
cules," said Xenophon, "what extraordinary power you represent to be in a
kiss! " "Do you wonder at this?" rejoined Socrates; "are you not aware that
the Tarantula by just touching a part of the body with his mouth, wears men
down with pain, and deprives them of their senses?" "Yes, indeed," said
Xenophon, "but the Tarantula infuses something at the bitten part." "And
do you not think, foolish man," rejoined Socrates, "that beautiful persons in-
fuse something when they kiss, something which you do not see?" The
Memorabilia of Socrates, trans. Rev. J. S. Watson (Philadelphia, 1899), pp.
36-37. See also Xenophon's Banquet, IV, 25-26.

46. Hermas, Le Pasteur, Introduction, texte critique, traduction et notes
par Robert Joly (Paris, 1958); Sources Chretiennes, No. 33, pp. 312-314. A
modern English translation of The Shepherd of Hermas by Joseph M.— F.
Marique, S.J., is printed in the series The Fathers of the Church: The
Apostolic Fathers, trans. Francis X. Glimm, Joseph M.— F. Marique, S.J.,
Gerald G. Walsh, S.J. (New York, 1947-48), pp. 225-352.

47. See Hermas, Le Pasteur, ed. Joly, pp. 48 and 312, n. 1. The Rev. F. Grom-
bie, author of an earlier translation into English of the Shepherd, writes in
connection with the episode: "We have in it [the early experiment of living as
brothers and sisters] an example of the struggles of individuals out of
heathenism, by no means an institution of Christianity itself." The Ante-
Nicene Fathers, II (New York, 1913), 58.

280

NOTES TO PACES 31-34

48. Hermas, Le Pasteur, pp. 300-303. Both the identity of the tall Master
and the meaning of the tower are made manifest to Hermas after his ex-
perience with the virgins. It is then too that Hermas is told who the twelve
virgins themselves are. They are nothing less than holy spirits, the twelve
powers of the Son of God without which one cannot enter into the Kingdom
of God. Their names are: Faith, Continence, Fortitude, Patience, Simplicity,
Innocence, Purity, Cheerfulness, Truth, Understanding, Concord, and Love.
The question arises as to whether this allegorization has a bearing on the
erotic episode between Hermas and the virgins. Joly and some other scholars
deny this to be so. Joly rejects the interpretation that would see the episode
as an allegorical representation of the joys of heaven. See Hermas, Le Pasteur,
pp. 48 and 315, n. 1. The arguments against any allegorical intention at all,
however, are not conclusive. It seems to me that we may well have an awk-
ward attempt at an adaptation of an erotic pagan theme to a Christian al-
legory. In a similar way, but much later, Boccaccio, in his Ameto, was to
make a clumsy attempt at allegorizing the figures of seductive nymphs whose
sensual charms are perceived by a young and as yet uncouth shepherd.

49. Epistula VI, 4. In Saint Cyprian, Correspondance, I, ed. Le Chanoine
Bayard, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1962), 17.

50. The Passion of S. Perpetua (see n. 13 above), p. 80.

51. Maxime Collignon, Essai sur les monuments grecs et remains relatifs
au mythe de Psyche, in Bibliothecjue des ecoles frangaises d'Athenes et de
Rome, fascicule second (Paris, 1877), pp. 285-446. For the list of Christian
sarcophagi bearing the Psyche and Eros embrace, see pp. 436-438.

52. See Collignon, p. 364.

53. Filippo Buonarotti, Osservazioni sopra alcuni frammenti di vasi
antichi di vetro ornati di figure trovati ne' cimiteri di Roma (Firenze, 1716),
p. 201. More recently, Franz Cumont, touching on the presence of the Eros
and Psyche myth in funerary art, wrote that the group "symbolise cet amour
divin dont Lame doit etre saisie pour s'elever vers le sejour des dieux;" and
in a note to this he interpreted the overall myth as symbolizing the soul's
winning of Paradise "Le conte moral suivant lequel Psyche apres de dures
epreuves et une severe penitence obtenait, grace a I'intercession d'Eros, d'etre
transportee dans I'Olympe, ou un mariage I'unissait pour toujours a son
amant, devint a I'epoque paienne et resta pour les chretiens un symbole de
1 ame penetree de I'amour divin, qui, apres avoir expie ses fautes, est admise
au ciel." Recherches sur le symbolisme funeraire des remains (Paris, 1942),
pp. 319-320, n. 8.

54 - Epistula XXXVII, 3, in Correspondance, I, 94. The accommodation of
certain pagan myths to Christian ideas, especially in funerary art, included
such figures as Hermes and Orpheus as young shepherds, in which guise they
were types of Christ. More in line with the Psyche-Eros myth was the legend
of Ganymede abducted by Jupiter, which was allegorized into the Christian

281

NOTES TO PAGES 34-37

idea of the soul's ascension to Heaven. Such myths were to be revived in the
same key by the Italian Neoplatonists and artists of the Renaissance.

55. Symposium, 192. It is worthwhile remembering that in Genesis, Juda-
ism and Christianity had an androgyne myth also. Both versions of the
Genesis account (1 :27-28; 2 :2i— 24) of the creation of man consider the origi-
nal man to be androgynous or hermaphroditic.

56. "Quid est ergo amor, nisi quaedam vita duo aliqua copulans, vel
copulare appetens, amantem scilicet, et quod amatur? Et hoc etiam in externis
carnalibusque amoribus ita est." De Trinitate, VIII, x, 14; in Oeuvres de Saint
Augustin, XVI, ed. P. Agaesse, S.J. (Paris, 1955), 70.

57. De ordine, II, xviii, 48; in Oeuvres de Saint Augustin, IV, ed. R. Jolivet
(Paris, 1948), 446.

58. 1 would refer, for example, to one of the most widely read psychological
enquiries concerning love in our day. It is easy to see that Erich Fromm's The
Art of Loving (New York, Harper Colophon Books, 1962) is centered on the
concept that true love — in whatever form it takes — is the result of the human
creature's sense of alienation and an urge to find at-one-ment. "The desire for
interpersonal fusion," Fromm writes, "is the most powerful striving in man.
It is the most fundamental passion, it is the force which keeps the human race
together, the clan, the family, society. The failure to achieve it means insanity
or destruction" (p. 18). Within this existential need for fusion or oneness is
included the specific biological need for union between the masculine and
feminine poles. And Fromm observes further that "The basis for our need to
love lies in the experience of separateness and the resulting need to overcome
the anxiety of separateness by the experience of union. The religious form of
love, that which is called the love of God, is psychologically speaking, not
different. It springs from the need to overcome separateness and to achieve
union" (p. 63).

59. "De Substantia Dilectionis" {InsHtutiones in Decalogum, ch. IV); in PL

176, 15-

60. Loc. cit.

61. It may be pointed out that Paul's words indicate that it is the earthly
conjugal union which is a copy of the mystic marriage between Christ and the
Church. This is a "Platonic" feature, if one likes, in Paul's passage. Some time
after Paul, the Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus has the same manner of con-
sidering a supernal union to be the model of the union of earthly lovers.
Speaking of the soul's attainment of union with the divine, he says that then
there is "no longer a duality but a two in one; for so long as the presence
holds, all distinction fades : it is as lover and beloved here, in a copy of that
union, long to blend" (Enneads VI, vii, 34). Plotinus, The Enneads, trans.
Stephen MacKenna, 3d ed. revised by B. S. Page (London, 1936), p. 588. We
will find the same thing later in medieval Jewish mysticism.

282

NOTES TO PAGES 37-38

6 z. Mysticism (New York, ig6o), p. 426. This work was first published in
1911.

63. As for the nuptial idea, it is already conspicuous in the Old Testament;
it becomes a major metaphor in the Gospels of the New Testament (where we
even find the portrayal of Christ's awareness of himself as a Bridegroom), and
is fully confirmed by St. Paul, most dramatically in the passage from Ephe-
sians. For a close examination of this motif in the prophetic books of the Old
Testament, see Andre Feuillet's Le Cantique des Cantiques: Etude de theologie
hiblique et reflexions sur une methode d'exegese (Paris, 1953), pp. 140-192.
The concept as it developed from the Old to the New Testament and then in
the early Church Fathers has been studied by Claude Chavasse in The Bride
of Christ: An Enquiry into the Nuptial Element in Early Christianity (Lon-
don, 1940), a work that stresses the idea of the Bridegroom and bride as refer-
ring to Christ and the Church (which is the Mystical Bride and the Mystical
Body of Christ). Chavasse is unsympathetic to the interpretation that con-
siders the individual soul to be the bride, this being a development that
reached its apogee in the twelfth century. Thus he does not do justice, or so it
seems to me, to the richness of St. Bernard's sermons on the Song. On the
other hand, the chapter on St. Augustine's use of the bride motif is excellent.
Augustine, who does not adopt the soul-bride theme, save perhaps with one
exception (Serm. LXXXVII, 9), frequently in his writings applies the idea of
the bride as the Church.

64. The interpretation of the Song of Songs in the Jewish tradition has been
studied by Paul Vulliau.d in Le Cantique des Cantiques, d'apres la tradition
juive (Paris, 1925), a book which is, however, often disconcerting. Besides
giving over half of his time to ridiculing almost everything that had hitherto
been written about the Song, the author seems not to care about matters of
chronology, and frequently ascribes medieval Jewish mystical trends to earlier
periods, in some cases to the time of St. Paul. The reader will find a succinct
and reliable account of the Jewish tradition vis-a-vis the Song in The Jewish
Encyclopedia under the entries "Bride" and "Song of Songs." For a view of
the major Christian interpretations of the Song through the centuries, see the
invaluable Dictionnaire de Spiritualite Ascetique et Mystique, II (Paris, 1033),
86-109. However, the most definitive single study of patristic and medieval
Christian exegeses of the Song in the West is that bv Friedrich Ohly,
Hohelied-Studien: Grundziige einer Geschichte der Hoheliedauslegung des
Abendlandes bis um 1200. Schriften der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft an
der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitat Frankfurt am Main, Geisteswis-
senschaftliche Reihe Nr. 1 (Wiesbaden, ios8). Another important though
more specialized study is Helmut Riedlinger's Die Makellosigkeit der Kirche
in den lateinischen Hoheliedkommentaren des Mittelalters, (Muenster, 1058).
A survey which is especially valuable for some of the more modern interpreta-
tions is H. H. Rowlev's "The Interpretation of the Song of Songs," in that
author's volume The Servant of the Lord and other Essays on the Old Testa-
ment (London, 1952), pp. 189-234. The bulk of Rowley's essay is devoted to

283

NOTES TO PAGE 38

a cogent criticism of the view that the Song is closely connected with the
liturgy of the Babylonian Adonis-Tammuz fertility cult. The latter is a view
that has been favored by many in one form or another, especially since it was
put forth by T. J. Meek in 1922. The latest somewhat modified presentation
of this view by Meek is found in The Interpreter's Bible, V (New York, 1956),
91-98. There (p. 94) the author still maintains that "The Song of Songs is the
survival in conventionalized form of ancient Hebrew New Year liturgies that
celebrated the reunion and marriage of the sun god with the mother goddess,
which in the ancient world typified the revival of life in nature that came with
the return of the growing season." For a consideration of the possible re-
lationship between the Song and love poetry of the East as well as for a
refutation of the cultic and literalist interpretations (both ancient and modern,
for the controversy over the Song is as vital today as ever), see the edition of
the Song in the series of Etudes Bibliques: Le Cantique des Cantiques, traduc-
tion et commentaire par A. Robert, P.S.S., et R. Tournay, O.P. avec le con-
cours de A. Feuillet, P.S.S. (Paris, 1963). This volume includes an essential
bibliography.

65. The attitude of Christianity toward marriage in the early centuries and
in the Middle Ages is notorious. For the theologians, virginity and absolute
chastity were the highest ideals as conditions which would preserve one from
a defection from God; marriage was at best held to be a necessary evil. It was
a lawful concession to weakness, and it was necessary to the propagation of
the species, but otherwise it was deplorable. Rather than Christ's approval of
marriage, early Christianity remembered Paul's begrudging tolerance: "I wish
you were all in the same state as myself ... To the unmarried and to the
widows, I would say that they will do well to remain in the same state as
myself, but if they have not the gift of continence, let them marry; better to
marry than to feel the heat of passion" (melius est enim nubere quam uri.
I Cor. 7:7-9). The voices echoing this sentiment were many, but among the
most forceful was St. Jerome's in his Adversus loviniamtm, a work that
enjoyed great fame in the Middle Ages because of its antifeminist pronounce-
ments. Jerome reminds his readers that it is a great blessing not to be bound
to a wife because then one is free to serve Christ. As for those who are
married, he warns them that ardent love of one's wife is equivalent to adultery
or fornication. A man should love his wife with judgment, not with feeling
(Sapiens vir judicio debet amare conjugem, non affectu). Married men should
behave toward their wives not as lovers, but as husbands. PL 22, 281.

Paul s attitude toward marriage was declared the official position of the
Catholic Church at the Council of Trent in a decree that anathematized those
who held celibacy and virginity to be an inferior state to marriage. Nonethe-
less, it would be wrong to deny that the ov'erall effect of Catholic teaching has
been to spiritualize and sanctify marriage, and it was precisely Paul's use of
the conjugal union of man and wife to figure the union of Christ and the
Church which was a key text in this development. Besides this general de-
velopment, there were voices in the Middle Ages that spoke of the positive
side of marriage and sex in a naturalistic key.

284

NOTES TO PAGES 38-40

66 . PG 44, 776 C.

67. Ibid., 780 C-D.

68. As an illustration of this point we may refer to a passage from the great
seventeenth century Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross, who exalts the
sense of touch as the highest in the order of the spiritual senses, and the kiss
as the greatest touch that God gives to the soul. "For these are the touches that
the Bride entreated of Him in the Songs, saying Oscidetiir me oscido oris sui.
Since this is a thing which takes place in such close intimacy with God,
whereto the soul desires with such yearnings to attain, it esteems and longs
for a touch of this Divinity more than all the other favours that God grants it.
Wherefore, after many such favours have been granted to the Bride in the
said Songs, of which she has sung therein, she is not satisfied, but entreats
Him for these Divine touches, saying: 'Who shall give Thee to me, my
brother, that I might find Thee alone without, sucking the breasts of my
mother, so that I might kiss Thee with the mouth of my soul.' " Dark Night of
the Sold, trans. and ed. E. Allison Peers, 3d rev. ed. (New York, Image
Books), p. 188.

6g. De IV Gradibus Violentae Caritatis, 18. I have used the critical edition
of Gervais Dumeige (Paris, 1935), p. 145.

70. The significance of the need for such a language was admirably stated
by Evelyn Underhill in a work on mysticism which, although written half a
century ago, remains a classic in its field. The author writes : "At this point we
begin to see that the language of deification, taken alone, will not suffice to
describe the soul's final experience of Reality. The personal and emotional
aspect of man's relation with his Source is also needed if that which he means
by 'union with God' is to be even partially expressed. Hence, even the most
'transcendental' mystic is constantly compelled to fall back on the language of
love in the endeavour to express the content of his metaphysical raptures:
and forced in the end to acknowledge that the perfect union of lover and
Beloved cannot be suggested in the precise and arid terms of religious philos-
ophy. Such arid language eludes the most dangerous aspects of 'divine union,'
the pantheistic on the one hand, the 'amoristic' on the other; but it also fails
to express the most splendid side of that amazing experience. It needs some
other, more personal and intimate vision to complete it; and this we shall find
in the reports of those mystics of the 'intimate' type to whom the Unitive life
has meant not self-loss in an Essence, but self-fulfilment in the union of heart
and will." Mysticism (New York, i960), pp. 423-426.

What is said here of Christian mystical language is true of other religions
as well. Muslim mysticism in particular is to be compared with Christianity
in this matter. A. J. Arberry W'rites: "Many anecdotes of the early Sufis relate
how fond they were of quoting love poetry, often in the first place of a purely
human character, which they interpreted allegorically to accord with their
own passionate spiritualism .... Fully to understand the later poetry of
Sufism .... it is necessary to keep in mind how fundamental in Sufi thought

285

NOTES TO PAGES 40-42

is this allegory of love, and how readily in their minds human and Divine
imagery is interchanged." Sufism, An Account of the Mystics of Islam
(London, 1950), p. 61.

71. De virginibus velandis, XI, 7. In Stromata patristica et mediaevalia,
Fasciculus quartus: Q. Septimi Florentis Tertulliani De oratione et De vir-
ginibus velandis libelli, ed. G. F. Dierks (Utrecht/ Antwerpt, 1956), p. 53. Cf.
De oratione, XXII, 10, ibid., p. 32.

72. PL 16, 1165.

73. The important document relative to this topic is a decree by Constantine
concerning the question of donations ante nuptias (Codex Theodos. ed. G.
Haenel, 1842 Bonn, III, 5, 6). For its significance and impact see G. Tamassia,
"Oscrdum interveniens : Contributo alia storia dei riti nuziali," in Rivista
storica italiana, II (1885), 241-264. For matrimonial rites under the Empire
see also Mario Righetti, Manuale di Storia Liturgica, IV (Milan, 1953), 335.
It is not known when the use of the kiss as the seal or perfecting of betrothal
among the Romans was begun. Tamassia notes that by the time of Con-
stantine's decree Roman customs had perhaps lost even the memory of the
austerity of the early years of the Republic, which evidently would not have
approved of such usage. However, it is not so much as an erotic symbol that
the betrothal kiss seems to have been used, but rather as a magical rite
establishing a psycho-physical union. In this sense it could have been quite
ancient. It is also to be noted that Tertullian's reference to the usage precedes
the decree by a century.

74. Until the ninth century, writes W. M. Foley, "the sponsalia and actual
nuptials were still regarded as distinct ceremonies, between which an interval
of time might elapse. ... It is, however, most probable that from much earlier
times the two ceremonies had been generally combined in practice. Formal
sponsalia were not required by Roman law, and were frequently omitted. In
such cases . . . espousal ceremonies would take place at the actual marriage."
"Marriage," in The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. J. Hastings, VIII
(New York, 192S), 436. It is curious that the author does not mention the kiss
specifically as being among the chief features of the ancient betrothal cere-
mony; "The solemn troth-plight, the joining of hands and the giving and
receiving of a ring or rings with certain gifts of money — the arrhae, pledge of
the dowry— were the principal features of the betrothal ceremony" (p. 435).

75. The Evreux Pontifical of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, in its
description of the marriage ceremony, indicates that after the Agnus Dei, "the
bridegroom goes up to the altar to receive the Pax from the priest, and then
carries it to his bride, whom he kisses." A. Villien, The History and Liturgy
of the Sacraments, trans. H. W. Edwards (New York, 1932), pp. 323—324.
Villien also notes that the Ambrosian Ritual likewise declares that at the
marriage Mass the Pax is given first to the bridegroom, then to the bride (In
missa datur pax sponso primum, deinde sponsae). Ibid., p. 324. There was
also an effort to exclude the nuptial kiss entirely, especially in the post-

286

NOTES TO PAGES 42-46

Tridentine period. For example, a Synod of Turin in 1647 declared: "Nulli
sponso liceat in ecclesia sponsam osculari" (Synod. I Taur, 1647, p. 104).
Quoted in M. Righetti, Manuale, IV, 345. The nuptial kiss is once again in
current usage as part of the wedding ceremony in the Church.

76. Before or contemporaneously with Origen, in the early part of the third
century, Hippolytus of Rome had written a commentary in which the bride
was the Church, and the bridegroom was the Incarnate Word. Of this work,
which was very likely the first full Christian spiritual allegorization of the
Song, only fragments remciin. In it, there is at least the suggestion of the soul
as bride. See Dictionnaire de Spiritualite (above, n. 64), II, 94.

77. In Canticum Canticorum 1 , 1; PG 15, 85. Except for a few Greek frag-
ments, Origen's Commentary on the Song comes down to us in the Latin
translation of Rufinus. Similarly his Homilies on the Song were saved for
posterity by way of the Latin version of St. Jerome.

78. PG 13, 86.

79. "11 saute aux yeux qu'on est ici [la litterature hermetique] aux antipodes
de la conception philonienne et gnostique, d'apres laquelle le pneuma est
consider? comme une lumiere divine accordee a I'homme en vue de lui
reveler des verites qu'il ne pourrait pas connaltre par les seules forces de son
intelligence humaine." G. Verbeke, L' evolution de la doctrine du pneuma du
stoicisme d S. Augustin (Paris and Louvain, 1945), p. 321.

80. In Liber de Isaac et anima; PL 14, 331.

81. Epistola 41, 15. In PL 16, 1165. The same verse from the Psalm had
been referred to as a kiss by Origen in speaking of the kisses of the Word
as the illuminating of obscure meanings for the perfected soul. See PG 13,
83-86.

82. De Sacramentis, V, ii, 3-7; PL 16, 466-467.

83. PG 81, 53.

84. The Eucharistic-bridal union is in fact a frequent thought in Christian
writers. Without seeking to multiply examples, we may note that one of the
most ecstatic waxings on the Eucharist as a marital union between the com-
municant and Jesus Christ occurs in the works of Bossuet. The eating of the
God-man is a marriage in body and spirit between bride and Bridegroom.
Building on the fundamental Johannine text (John 6:37), Bossuet reminds
us that the union and the indwelling is reciprocal, and, he says, "I'Eucharistie
nous explique toutes les paroles d'amour, de correspondence, d'union, qui
sont entre Jesus-Christ et son Eglise, entre I'Epoux et I'Epouse, entre lui et
nous." Oeuvres completes de Bossuet, VI (Paris, 1862), 369. These words are
immediately followed by the remarkable passage in which Bossuet explains
the bridal-alimentary image of eating and assimilating the Host by an analogy
with the rage of human lovers who seek desperately to unite in an embrace
and kiss that have an anthropophagic quality and intent.

287

NOTES TO PACES 46-50

The Eucharist is the divine Banquet, and it is worthwhile noting that in
the Church's liturgical chants. Psalm 35, which urges us to "taste and see
how sweet the Lord is," has commonly been linked with the Eucharist. The
invitation to taste and so experience the sweetness of the Lord is easily con-
nected with the kiss image, as is done, for example, in the eleventh century
by John of Fecamp, who brings the verse from the Psalm into conjunction
with the kiss of the Song: "Osculetur me osculo oris sui. Quae osculum
divinae veritatis felicissimo amore expetis, vaca et vide quoniam Deus est
suavis." Quoted in Un mattre de la vie spirituelle au XT siede: Jean de
Fecamp, par Jean Ledercq et Jean-Paid Borines (Paris, 1946), p. 205.

83. A. M. La Bonnardiere, who has recorded Augustine's citations from
the Song, gives no entry for the verse that speaks of the Shulamite's request
for kisses. See "Le Cantique des Cantiques dans I'oeuvre de saint Augustin,"
in Revue des Etudes Augustiniennes, I, no. 3 (1955), 223-237.

86. De lihero arbitrio, II, xiv, 37; in Oeuvres de Saint Augustin, VI, ed. F.
Thonnard (Paris, 1941), 286.

87. "Nunc illud quaerimus, qualis sis amator sapientiae, quam castissimo
conspectu atque amplexu, nullo interposito velamento quasi nudam videre
ac tenere desideras, qualem se ilia non sinit, nisi paucissimus et electissimis
amatoribus suis." Soliloquia, I, xiii, 22; in Oeuvres de Saint Augustin, V, ed.
P. de Labriolle (Paris, 1948), 70. This idea of the lover desiring to behold
and embrace chastely the beloved Sapientia in the nude is strikingly like the
medieval troubadour concept of fin amors which speaks of touching and
embracing the beloved in the nude. See chapter 3 for remarks on the con-
nection between troubadour love and the Christian tradition.

88. In the fourteenth century, Henry Suso, the German "troubadour" of
divine love, has Eternal Wisdom use such expressions as; "My faithfulness
is so made to be loved, so lovely am I to be embraced, and so tender for
pure languishing souls to kiss, that all hearts ought to break for My pos-
session"; "My love is of that sort which is not diminished in unity, nor
confounded in multiplicity"; "I go forth to meet those who seek Me, and I
receive with affectionate joy such as desire My love." Quoted from The Soul
Afire, ed. H. A. Reinhold (New York, 1944), pp. 234-233.

89. The translation is that of J. C. Pilkington in Basic Writings of Saint
Augustine, ed. Whitney J. Oates, I (New York, 1948), 166.

90. "But what is it that I love in loving Thee? Not corporeal beauty, nor
the splendor of time, nor the radiance of the light, so pleasant to our eyes,
nor the sweet melodies of songs of all kinds, nor the fragrant smell of flowers,
and ointments, and spices, not manna and honey, not limbs pleasant to the
embracements of flesh (non membra acceptabilia carnis amplexibiis). I love
not these things when I love my God; and yet I love a certain kind of light,
and sound, and fragrance, and food, and embracement in loving my God,
who is the light, sound, fragrance, food, and embracement of my inner man"
(X, 6). Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, 1 , 131.

288

NOTES TO PAGES 51-53

2. Medieval Mystics

1. PL 177, 563.

2. See R. Javelet, “Psychologie des auteurs spirituels du XIP siecle," in
Revue des Sciences Religieuses, 33, 3 (1939), esp. 266-267. See also in our
chapter 1 the remarks concerning love as a desire for at-one-ment.

3. Sermones super Cantica Canticorum, 1 , iv, 6. For Bernard's Sermons on
the Song I have translated from the critical edition of the Opera, Vols. I and
II prepared by J. Leclercq, C. H. Talbot, H. M. Rochais (Rome, Editiones
Cistercienses, 1957, 1958). The first quote is from Vol. I (1957), p. 3. Other
references to this work will be given as Opera, followed by the volume num-
ber and page.

4. Origin's use of this etymology of Solomon as the Peaceful One occurs
in the prologue of his own Commentary on the Song. See PG 13, 80.

5. Sermones super Cantica, II, ii, 3. In Opera, I, 9-10.

6. Sermones super Cantica, II, iii, 4-7. In Opera, I, 10-12. The application
of the kiss image to the Incarnation itself was made by St. Jerome in the
exposition of Psalm 84:11, a verse which uses the term kiss to refer to the
fusion of justice and peace into one, which in turn is interpreted as referring
to the Incarnate God (Dei et hominis filius). "Misericordia et veritas ob-
viaverunt sibi: justitia et pax osculatae sunt. Misericordia et veritas ob-
viaverunt. Duas res video, quae conveniendo et obviando unum hunt. lustitia
et pax osculatae sunt. Hoc totum in mysterium Domini Salvatoris coaptatur:
hoc est Dei et hominis filius, qui est nobis veritas misericordia pax atque
iustitia, in quo iustitia prioris populi et misericordia sequentis in unam pacem
coniunguntur. 'Ipse enim est, ait apostolus, pax nostra, qui fecit utraque
unum.' Hoc est mysterium, quod ecclesia desiderat, et clamat in Canticis
canticorum dicens 'Osculetur me osculo oris sui.' Hoc est osculum, quod
Paulus apostolus dicit 'Salutate invicem in osculo pacis.' " S. Hieronymi
Presbyteri Opera, Pars U Opera Homiletica. Corpus Christianorum : Series
Latina, LXXVIII (Turnholti, 1938), p. 398. Here then, it is an ecclesiastical
interpretation that Jerome gives to the Song of Songs. The connection made
with the Pauline holy kiss of salutation among the brethren is clear. The
osculum pacis is Christ. The faithful greet, love, and kiss one another in
Christ.

St. Bonaventura perhaps remembered Jerome's words when he also re-
ferred Psalm 84 :ii and the osculum amoris of the Song to the Incarnate
Word : "Osculum . . . signum est amoris et pacis . . . Hoc osculum amoris et
pacis petit sponsa in Canticis . . . Benedictionis plenitudo ex hoc osculo
procedit. Unde in Psalmo 'Benedixisti, Domine, terram tuam;' et subditur:
'Misericordia et veritas obviaverunt sibi, justitia et pax osculatae sunt.' Istius
deosculationis origo est in Verbo incarnato, in quo est unio summi amoris.

289

NOTES TO PAGES 53-55

et connexio duplicis naturae, per quam Deus nos osculatur, et nos Dominum
deosculamur." "Expositio in Evangelium 5 . Lucae," in Sancti Bonaventurae
Opera omnia, XI, ed. A. C. Peltier (Paris, 1864), 16.

Bernard's contemporary and fellow Cistercian, William of Saint-Thierry,
although he prefers to see the soul as the bride of the Song, nonetheless
recognized that the Incarnation was itself a celestial kiss given by Christ to
his bride the Church. In that kiss — that is, in joining himself with the human
nature — he united himself so intimately with the bride that he became one
with her, God having become man, and man having become God. Expose
sur le Cantique des Cantiqiies, ed. J.-M. D&hanet, O.S.B. (Paris, 1962), p.
112. Also in PL 180, 483 C.

7. In point of fact, in Bernard's Sermons the bride is alternately the Church
and the individual soul ; sometimes he passes unexpectedly and imperceptibly
from the one to the other. In the same way, although the Bridegroom of the
soul-bride is usually the Word, at times it is the Word made flesh, Jesus
Christ. Ordinarily, though not constantly, for the mystics of spiritual mar-
riage, when Christ is the Bridegroom the Church is the bride.

8. Sermones super Cantica, III, iii. In Opera, 1 , 17.

9. Sermones super Cantica, VIII, i, 2. In Opera, I, 37.

10. Bernard notes that the Kiss of the Mouth is the indwelling of the Father
in the Son and of the Son in the Father, the texts referring to this being the
mystic utterances from the Johannine Gospel: "I and the Father are one" and
"I am in the Father and the Father is in me" (John 10:30; 14:10). This, says
Bernard, is the Kiss from Mouth to Mouth. No creature can lay claim to such
a kiss: "Audi siquidem osculum de ore: Ego et Pater unum sumus (John
10:30); item: Ego in Patre, et Pater in me est (John 14:10). Osculum est ore
ad os sumptum." Sermones super Cantica, VIII, vii, 7. In Opera, I, 40.

11. Loc. cit. For further discussion of the Holy Spirit as Kiss motif in con-
nection with the Trinity and dove symbolism, see Appendix I.

12. Sermones super Cantica, VIII, ii, 5. In Opera, I, 38.

13. Sermones super Cantica, VIII, vii, 8. In Opera, I, 41.

14. Such, for example, is what we find in a page from St. Gregory the
Great: "Hoc autem, quod generaliter de cuncta ecclesia diximus, nunc
specialiter de unaquaeque anima sentiamus. Ponamus ante oculos esse
animam quandam donorum studiis inherentem, intellectum ex aliena prae-
dicatione percipientem : quae per diuinam gratiam etiam ipsa inlustrari
desiderat, ut aliquando etiam per se intellegat: quae nihil se intellegere nisi
per uerba praedicatorum considerat; et dicat: OSCULETUR ME OSCULO
ORIS SUE 'Ipse me tangat intus, ut cognoscam intellegentia, et non iam
praedicatorum uocibus sed internae eius gratiae tactu perfruar.' Quasi osculo
oris sui osculabatur Moysen dominus, cum ei per fiduciam familiaris gratiae
intellectum porrigeret. Unde scriptum est: Si fuerit propheta, in somnium

290

NOTES TO PAGES 55-57

loquar ad eum, et non sicut famulo meo Moysi: os enim ad os loquor ei [Num.
12:6-8]. Os quippe ad os loqui quasi osculari est et interna intellegentia
mentem tangere." Expositiones in Canticum Canticorum, In Librum Primum
Regum, ed. Patricius Verbraken, O.S.B. Corpus Christianorum : Series Latina,
CXLIV (Turnholti, 1963), pp. 17—18. Here too, the kiss indicates an infusion
of special grace whereby the soul is illuminated and touches — knows in an
intimate way — the deeper mysteries of the Deity. The same thought and the
same transposition from intellectual to affective imagery is what we find in
a passage from William of Saint-Thierry. Yearning for insight into the secrets
of the Kingdom of God, he desires to have a clear revelation of the Father
made to him, he says, face to face, eye to eye, kiss to kiss. "Mysterium regni
Dei desidero, palam nihi annuntiari de Patre deposco; faciem ad faciem,
oculum ad oculum, osculum ad osculum. Osculetur me osculo oris sui." Ex-
pose sur le Cantique des Cantiques (Paris, 1962), pp. 118-120.

15. Sermones super Cantica, VIII, iv, 6. In Opera, I, 39.

16. Sermones super Cantica, VII, ii, 2. In Opera, I, 31-32.

17. Sermones super Cantica, IX, ii, 2. In Opera, I, 43.

18. Sermones super Cantica, VIII, iv, 6. In Opera, I, 39.

19. The great mystics such as Bernard and Gregory of Nyssa think of the
grace they may receive not as a private gift, but as a privilege carrying the
joyous responsibility of assisting others by it. Grace, that is, has an apostolic
and charismatic character attached to it. See the observations made by J.
Danielou on this matter in connection with the mystic theology of Gregory
of Nyssa, in Platonisme et Theologie Mystique: Doctrine spirituelle de Saint
Grfgoire de Nysse, Nouvelle edition (Paris, 1954), p. 310.

20. Sermones super Cantica, IX, v, 7. In Opera, I, 46.

21. One of the best-known Latin religious songs of the Middle Ages is
often attributed to Bernard. It is the beautiful “Jesw, dulcis memoria" in
which we hear of the soul's yearning for the sweetness of union with Christ.
The union is pictured as the embracement and honeyed kisses of lovers :

Trmc amplexus, tunc oscula

Quae vincunt mellis pocula :

Quam felix, Christ! copula!

22. It is true, however, that William first acknowledges the celestial kiss
Christ gave the Church when the Word assumed flesh and thereby joined
himself so intimately with her that the two became one. What William is
saying is that the Incarnation is a kiss: "Sponsus vero Christus, sponsae suae
Ecclesiae, quasi osculum de caelo porrexit, cum Verbum caro factum, in
tantum ei appropinquavit, ut se ei conjungeret; in tantum conjunxit, ut uniret,
ut Deus homo, homo Deus fieret." Super Cantica Canticorum, in Expose sur
le Cantique des Cantiques, texte latin, introduction et notes de J.-M. De-
chanet, O.S.B. (Paris, 1962), Sources Chretiennes No. 82, p. 112. Also in PL
180, 483.

291

NOTES TO PACE 58

23. Expose, p. 144. Also in PL 180, 483.

24. The passage occurs in connection with William's exegesis of the words
"Lectulus noster floridus" from the Song (1:16). It is in this bed, says Wil-
liam, that the embrace and the unitive kiss are consummated. Expose, pp.
220-222. Also in PL 180, 506. There is a similar passage in William's Epistola
ad Fratres de Monte-Dei (108) where again the bond joining the soul and
God is said to be the Holy Spirit itself, the Charity that is God, the unity,
kiss, embrace, that binds the Son to the Father and vice versa. This same
bond or kiss binds the soul and God. The blessed soul finds itself rapt into
that Trinitarian kiss and embrace: "cum in amplexu et osculo Patris et Filii
mediam quodammodo se invenit beata conscientia." But no more than Ber-
nard can William be accused of confusing the creature with the Creator.
Great as the gift of the Spirit is, the fact remains that in this ineffable manner
man is like God because of that gift of grace, whereas God is what he is by
virtue of his nature: "cum modo ineffabili incogitabili fieri meretur homo
Dei non Deus, sed tamen quod est Deus, homo ex gratia, quod Deus [est] ex
natura." Un trade de la vie solitaire: Epistola ad Fratres de Monte-Dei de
Guillaume de Saint-Thierry, Edition critique du texte latin, par M.-M. Davy
(Paris, 1040), p. 146. Also PL 1S4, 340 A-B. On the other hand, the German
mystic Meister Eckhart, in using the kiss image to indicate the mystic union,
apparently suggests that the creature spiritually joins with God in essence,
thus losing its creaturely condition: "They say no property (or union) is
closer than that of the three Persons being one God. And next they put the
union of the soul with God. When the soul, being kissed by God, is in ab-
solute perfection and in bliss, then at last she knows the embrace of unity,
then at the touch of God she is made uncreaturely, then with God's motion,
the soul is as noble as God is himself." Sermon 83: St. Germanus' Day, in
Franz Pfeiffer, Meister Eckhart, trans. C. De B. Evans, I (London ,1924), 209.

25. "Et sicut solet in amantium osculis, suavi quodam contractu mutuo
sibi spiritus suos transfundentium, creatus spiritus in hoc ipsum creanti eum
Spiritui totum se effundit; ipsi vero Creator Spiritus se infundit, prout vult,
et units spiritus homo cum Deo efficitur." Expose, p. 222. Also PL 180, 506.

26. "Ideo quaecumque Sponsa est, hoc solum desiderat, hoc affectat, ut
facies ejus faciei tuae jungatur jugiter in osculo caritatis; hoc est, unus tecum
spiritus fiat per unitatem ejusdem voluntatis." Expose, p. 280. Also PL 180,
520. "Et Sponsus quidem in Sponsa etiam nesciente, eo pascitur, quo ilia
cruciatur; cum ilia citra amplexum et osculum, citra mutuae conjunctionis
suavitatem, non recipiat consolationem." Expose, p. 356. Also PL 180, 533.
The kiss (and, at times, the embrace with it) remains the image describing
the attainment of the lover's desire: union and peace. St. Gregory the Great
had said: Anima ergo, quae iam per amorem conpungi desiderat, quae iam
contemplari visionem sponsi sui appetit, dicat: Osculetur me osculo oris sui.
Vel certe osculum oris eius est ipsa perfectio pacis internae: ad quam cum
pervenerimus, nihil remanebit amplius, quod quaeramus." In Cant. 18—19.
Corpus Christianorum : Series Latina, CXLIV, p. 21.

292

NOTES TO PAGES 58-63

27. "Simul etiam nota, in petitione osculi, supremum in oratione humanae
possibilitatis affectum, in lumen illud vultus Dei suum direxisse aspectum."
Expose, p. 124.

28. PL 195, 672. Again we find here the echo of the great theme from Acts
4 :j2, where it is said that in the believers in Christ "there was one heart and
one soul." We may point out that in speaking of friendship as uniting in
equality those who love one another, Aelred says that such friendship reaches
its highest joy when it embraces many friends. See PL 195, 687-692.

29. PL 195, 672-673.

30. PL 195, 673.

31. "Quomodo avulsus es ab amplexibus meis, subtractus oculis [osculis?]
meis, subductus oculis meis. Amplexabar te, dilecte frater; non came sed
corde. Osculabar te, non oris attactu, sed mentis affectu." PL 195, 543.

32. PL 195, 673.

33. PL 16, 192.

34. Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, I, ed. Whitney J. Oates (New York,
1948), 47.

35. Sermones super Cantica, XXVI, vi, 9. In Opera, 1 , 177.

36. PL 193, 619.

37. Meanwhile we may note that one of the most beautiful testimonies to
the two-in-one sentiment and the ecstatic or quasi-mystical character of
friendship comes from that least mystical-minded of Frenchmen, Montaigne.
Recalling his relationship with his dead friend. La Boetie, Montaigne writes :
"En I'amitie dequoy je parle, elles [les ames] se meslent et confondent I'une
en I'autre d'un melange si universel, qu'elles effacent et ne retrouvent plus
la couture qui les a jointes. Si on me presse de dire pourquoy je I'aymois, je
sens que cela ne se peut exprimer qu'en respondant: 'Par ce que c'estoit luy;
par ce que c'estoit moy.' " From the essay "De I'amitie," in Essais, ed. M. Rat
(Paris, 1932), I, 203-204.

With this we may compare what we read in Dryden's All for Love, where
Antony speaks of his friendship with Dollabella in the following way:

He lov'd me too,

I was his Soul; he liv'd not but in me.

We were so clos'd within each others breasts.

The rivets were not found that join'd us first
That does not reach us yet: we were so mixt.

As meeting streams, both to our selves were lost;

We were one mass; we could not give or take.

But from the same; for he was I, I he.

For the concept of friendship in antiquity the fundamental study remains
L. Dugas, L'amitie antique d’apres les moeurs populaires et les theories des

293

NOTES TO PACES 63-64

philosophes (Paris, 1894). One may also consult, for later developments,
Laurens J. Mills, One Soul in Bodies Twain: Friendship in Tudor Literature
and Stuart Drama (Bloomington, 1937). Mills's book is good for the period
it is primarily concerned with, and there is a useful review of the theme of
conventional male friendship in the Middle Ages. Too much is left unsaid,
however, of the special friendship motif in Christian medieval literature.
Strangely, there is no mention at all of Ficino or of Montaigne.

38. See Paul Zumthor, Miroirs de I'amour: Tra^edie et Preciosite (Paris,
1952), p. 51.

39. "Vultis ergo a me audire, quare et quomodo diligendus sit Deus? Et
ego: Causa diligendi Deum, Deus est; modus, sine modo diligere." St. Ber-
nard, De Diligendo Deo (PL 182, 974). Discussing Augustine's concept of
love of God, Etienne Gilson writes: "To love such a good [God] as it deserves
to be loved, we must love it unreservedly, without equality; indeed we must,
on the contrary, love it with utter inequality. That same justice which, in
love between men, demands equality between ourselves and the object of
our love, demands that God be the object of an unqualified love even though
our own good cannot be compared with Him. In this case, the measure is to
love without measure : ipse ibi modus est sine modo amare . . . This formula,
which will recur frequently during the Middle Ages, is not from Augustine
but from his friend Severus, summarizing Augustine's own thought with
great felicity of expression (Epist. 109, 2; PL 33, 419)." The Christian Philos-
ophy of Saint Augustine (New York, i960), pp. 138-139.

40. PL 176, 972, 975.

41. PL 184, 267. In the Symposium, Plato has Phaedrus indicate love's
power by stating that love makes men — and even women— dare to die for
their beloved.

42. The idea is so fundamental to Christianity that the very first and most
basic of the sacraments, baptism, has always been explained as a dying with
Christ and an assurance of a new life with him: "You know well enough
that we who were taken up into Christ by baptism have been taken up, all
of us, into his death. In our baptism, we have been buried with him, died
like him, that so, just as Christ was raised up by his Father's power from the
dead, we too might live and move in a new kind of existence. We have to be
closely fitted into the pattern of his resurrection, as we have been into the
pattern of his death" (Rom. 6:3—5). 1 have used the Knox translation here.
On the importance of the role of a ritual dying and resurrection in religions,
I can only quote here one of the most authoritative scholars on such ques-
tions : L histoire des religions et I'ethnologie connaissent un nombre con-
siderable d initiations, mais il n'en existe pas une seule qui ne comporte,
comme element constitutif, la mort et la resurrection rituelle. Mort et initia-
tion sont deux notions si proches qu'en plusieurs langues les termes qui les
expriment sont les memes ou sont derives de la meme racine." Mircea Eliade,

294

NOTES TO PAGES 64-66

"Chastete, Sexualite et Vie Mystique chez les Primitifs/' in Mystique et
Continence (Etudes Carmelitaines, 1952), p. 32.

43. De Genesi ad litteram, XII, 5, 14, and XII, 27, 55. In PL 34, 453 and
477-488.

44. For this passage I have quoted from The Confessions, trans. Sir Tobie
Matthew, revised and edited by Dom Roger Hudleston (London, 1931), p.
6. The Latin of the last line reads: "Noli abscondere a me faciem tuam:
moriar, ne moriar, ut earn videam."

45. On the Divine Names, IV, xii-xiii. In PG 3, 773-776.

46. Sermones super Cantica, LII, ii, 4. In Opera, II, 92.

47. Loc. cit. In a fascinating development of this idea, Bernard distinguishes
between two "deaths" as he describes the two highest peaks of mystic con-
templation. Like Augustine, but in a more truly mystic context, Bernard
prays that he might undergo the bride's death so as to be saved from a more
terrible death. The death desired is that in which the soul is transported out
of itself [a seipsa akripitur] so that it may rise above the ordinary modes
of thought and beyond all material impressions and temptations. Though
this is a good death by which our life is translated into something better,
Bernard says that it is a death peculiar to "men," that is, something less than
that death by which not only is desire transcended, but the soul is rid of all
conceptual thinking and the memory of corporeal imagery that keep it from
pure spiritual vision and communion with angelic intelligence. This death,
in fact, is called by Bernard the "death of angels."

48. Expose sur le Cantique des Cantiques, p. 114. Also in PL 180, 483.

49. In St. Bonaventura we read the following : "He who with full face looks
to this propitiatory [Christ] by looking upon Him suspended on the cross
in faith, hope, and charity, in devotion, wonder, exultation, appreciation,
praise, and jubilation, makes a passover — that is, the phase or passage with
Him — that he may pass over the Red Sea by the staff of the cross from Egypt
into the Desert, where he may taste the hidden manna and with Christ may
rest in the tomb as if outwardly dead, yet knowing, as far as possible in our
earthly condition, what was said on the cross to the thief cleaving to Christ :
Today thou shalt he with me in Paradise." The Mind's Road to God, trans.
George Boas (New York, 1933), pp. 43-44. For some remarks on Franciscan
Christianity in relationship to poetry, see F. J. E. Raby, A History of
Christian-Latin Poetry (Oxford, 1927), pp. 415-451. For the influence of
Franciscan piety on late medieval art, see Emile Male, L'art religieux de la
fin du moyen age en France (Paris, 1909), and Etienne Gilson, "Saint Bona-
venture et I'iconographie de la Passion," in Revue d'histoire franciscaine, I
(1924), 405 If.

50. De perfectione vitae, in Opera, III (Florence, Quaracchi, 1898), 123-
124. The ascription to Bernard is, I believe, unauthenticated. This erotic in-
terpretation of the crucified Christ was common in the Middle Ages. It occurs

295

NOTES TO PAGES 66-67

in a writing that was even attributed to St. Augustine. We are told that there
is no more efficient remedy against the ardor of our passions than to meditate
on the death of the Redeemer. His arms and hands are stretched out on the
cross as a sign that he is prepared to embrace sinners. It is in the arms of
the Savior that one should wish to live and die. At his death the Savior in-
clined his head so as to give a kiss to his beloved. And so we kiss him w'hen-
ever for love of him we are repentant. "Nullum tarn potens est, tarn efficax
contra ardorem libidinis medicamentum, quam mors Redemptoris mei. Ex-
tendit brachia sua in cruce, et expandit manus suas paratus in amplexus
peccatum. Inter brachia Salvatoris mei et vivere volo, et mori cupio . . .
Salvator noster caput inclinavit in morte, ut oscula daret suis dilectis. Toties
Deum osculamur, quoties in ejus amore compungimur." Manuale, ch. 23. In
St. Augustine, Opera omnia, VI, Pars altera (Paris, 1837), 1399. This quote,
along with the first twenty-four chapters of the Manual, is also found in the
fourth book of Hugh of Saint-Victor's De Anima.

The particular image in question was carried to an extreme by the Italian
mystic Domenico Cavalca (1270-1342) when he made a detailed comparison
between the figure of the crucified Christ and the dress and manner of a
secular swain going to a love tryst. When lovers go to visit their beloved,
they put on colored raiment and, as a token of love, wear garlands on their
heads. So Christ willed to be dressed in purple and have a garland of thorns
as a mark of his love. Lovers bear oranges and roses in their hands, and
Christ bore Vermillion wounds in his own hands. As lovers are wont to sing
sweet words, so too from the cross Christ spoke words of love and of such
sweetness as to draw all hearts. Lovers are wont to stretch out their arms
and lean their heads down so as to greet and embrace the beloved, and they
give other such signs of their love. All such signs were manifested by Christ,
the soul's Bridegroom, whose head is bent downwards to greet us, his mouth
now closed to kiss us, his arms and hands outstretched to embrace us, his
whole body extended to love us. The Italian text, which occurs in Cavalca's
Specchio di croce (ch. 33), may be read in Arrigo Levasti, I Mistici, I (Florence,
1923), igo-igi.

31. Senno suppositus 120:8 (\n Natali Domini, iv). In PL 39, 19S7.

32. Taking this passage (and others like it) which speaks of embracing
and dying with Christ on the cross, and thinking of the early Gnostic text
(Gospel of Philip) which spoke of Mary Magdalene as the consort of Christ,
who kissed her often, and thinking also of early depictions of the Magdalene
embracing the foot of the cross, one is brought to the daring conception of
Auguste Rodin's sculpture in the late nineteenth century. Rodin depicts a
sensuously nude Magdalene literally embracing Christ on the cross and
swooning away. It is quite more blatantly sexual than anything in the
Baroque age, or at least it fails to show that spiritualization of the sensual
that the best Baroque art achieves in its sensuous interpretation of religious
ecstasy, witness Bernini s famous sculpture of the transverberation of St.
Theresa.

296

NOTES TO PAGES 68-69

53. A discussion of the various manifestations of the religio-erotic ecstasy
of the mystical marriage in visions of the nuns would take us far beyond the
scope of this study. How far that language could go may be sampled here
by one case which, it is true, is even chronologically beyond the period I am
interested in in this section. Nonetheless it is an extreme example of the
matter at hand, and yet, it will be seen, it is directly connected with earlier
expressions we have noted. The passage is from St. Maria Maddalena de'
Pazzi (1566-1607): 'T saw how Jesus united with His bride in closest em-
brace. He laid His head over the head of His bride. His eyes upon her eyes.
His mouth upon her mouth. His feet upon her feet, all His members upon
hers so that His bride became one with Him and wanted all her Bridegroom
wanted, saw all that her Bridegroom saw, and savoured all that her Bride-
groom savoured. And God wants nothing but that the soul unite with Him
in such wise, and that He may be utterly united with her." Quoted in The
Spear of Gold: Revelations of the Mystics, ed. H. A. Reinhold (London, 1947),
p. 274. The union of the soul with God is here imaged in as realistic a picture
of the hieros gamos as one can get. And yet we note that the expressions
"His head over the head of His bride. His eyes upon her eyes. His mouth
upon her mouth" are what we found in William of Saint-Thierry, who de-
sired to have the revelation of God made to him "face to face, eye to eye,
kiss to kiss" (see last part of n. 14 to this chapter).

34. The Exercises of Saint Gertrude, Introduction, Commentary, and Trans-
lation by a Benedictine Nun of Regina Laudis (Westminster, Md., 1056), pp.
77-78.

55. Ibid., p. go. My italics.

56. The Latin document was printed in the Acta Sanctorum, Octobris, XII
(Brussels, 1884), pp. 403-404, where it appears in the Life of Blessed Joarma
Soderini, one of the persons present at the miracle of the Host at Juliana's
death.

The practice of offering the Crucifix to be kissed by the moribund naturally
leads to the idea of one dying in, on, or by the kiss of the Lord. An example
in point is the ecstatic death of St. Francis Xavier. In secular literature just
such a scene is recorded in a nineteenth century Italian novel which is per-
meated with sensuality and religious yearnings: Niccolo Tommaseo's Fede e
Bellezza (1840) concludes with the death of one of the two chief protagonists.
As Maria is about to breathe her last, her husband (Giovanni) places the
Crucifix to her lips : "La pace eterna, disse ella, e mosse le labbra a baciare il
crocifisso offertole da Giovanni; e nel bacio dell' Ami co suo immortale spirb”
(my italics). Another example of the motif in Romantic literature occurs in
Alphonse Lamartine's poem entitled "Le crucifix" (from Noiivelles Medita-
tions), an elegiac meditation on the death of a woman he loved. Readers will
recall the better known episode of Flaubert's Madame Bovary when, as the
crucifix is offered to the dying Emma, she urges her lips to it like one seeking
to slake a thirst and, with all her expiring force, imprints upon it "le plus
grand baiser d'amour qu'elle eut jamais donne."

297

NOTES TO PAGES 69-71

Still current in parts of Italy are the expressions "morire nel bacio del
Signore" and "addormentarsi nel bacio del Signore" (i.e., to die and/ or to
sleep in the kiss of the Lord) which signify "to die in the grace of God" and
"to die peacefully." See for example, Carzanti Comprehensive Italian-English,
English-ltalian Dictionary, ed. Mario Hazon (New York-Toronto-London:
McGraw Hill, 1961), at morire and bacio; also Dizionario Enciclopedico
Sansoni, I (Florence, 1952), 307.

37. During the late Middle Ages stories of the death of saints by divine
rapture were common. In the seventeenth century, St. Francis of Sales car-
ried a notice of a number of them in his treatise On the Love of God (Bk.
VII, chap. 9-13). Among those he passes in review as having died for and
by love in this way are: St. Ambrose, said to have died in ecstasy just after
having received the blessed sacrament; St. Thomas Aquinas, who died during
a great act of devotion singing the words of the Song; "Come my beloved,
let us go into the fields" (7:11); and Jean Gerson, the great theologian and
chancellor of the University of Paris, who is said to have died while reciting
as an ejaculatory prayer a variant of the remarkable line from the Song; "Oh
Lord, your love is strong as death." But it is the Virgin Mother who is, after
Christ, the greatest example of one dying of and for love; and she died in a
rapture, her soul being ravished and transported into the embrace of her
Son's love. Francis' discussion is made to illustrate precisely the idea that
not only is there a mystic love and rapture which causes a temporary death,
but also a mystic or divine love that is sometimes so "violent" that it causes
a bodily death by rapture, which definitively separates the soul from the
body.

58. See Hilda Graef, Mary: A History of Doctrine and Devotion, I (New
York, 1963), 85.

59. Expositio Psalmi CXVIII, 1, 16, In Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum
Latinorum, LXIl. Sancti Ambrosii Opera, ed. M. Petschenig (Leipzig, 1913),
Pars quinta, p. 16.

60. Henri De Lubac, S.}., The Splendour of the Church, trans. M. Mason
(New York, 1936), p. 279. This book includes a discussion of the Marian
exegesis of the Song and the scriptural bride motif. See the chapter "The
Church and Our Lady," esp. pp. 237-285.

61. An explanation of Bernard's avoidance of a Marian interpretation of
the Song is offered by Y. Congar, O.P., in "L'Ecclesiologie de S. Bernard,"
Analecta sacri ordinis cisterciensis IX, nos. 3-4 (Roma, 1933), 132-154. Father
Congar suggests that whereas others tended to equate Mary and the Church
(the ecclesial interpretation of the bride was, of course, traditional), Bernard
lifts the Virgin above the Church as mediatrix between the Church (all the
souls of the faithful making up the Church) and the Lord. We may note,
however, that in his other Sermons, Bernard does apply various verses of the
Song to the Virgin.

298

NOTES TO PAGES 72-73

62. Expositio in Cantica Canticorum; in PL 202, 1255. The long disquisition
on the kiss occupies some twenty-three columns: 1149-1172.

63. Homiliae Festivales, LXVII; in PL 174, 1025.

64. PL 267, 1577. Elsewhere Rupert exclaims: "Tibi autem, o Maria, seme-
tipsum revelavit, et osculans, et osculum et osculantis." PL 168, 839-840.

63. Amedee de Lausanne, Hint Homelies Mariales (Paris, i960). Sources
Chretiennes No. 72, p. 174.

66. "Festina, noli tardare, quia ille non tardabit . . . Festina et tu, ob-
liviscere populum tuum, et domum patris tui, occurrens obviam ei, ut oscu-
leris osculo oris Dei, eiusque beatissimis immiscearis amplexibus. Egredere,
quia iam thalamus collocatus est, et sponsus venit tibi, venit tibi Spiritus
sanctus . . . Spiritus sanctus superveniet in te, ut attactu eius venter tuus
contremiscat, uterus intumescat, gaudeat animus, floreat alvus. Macta, id est
magis aucta, quae tanta suavitate perfrueris, tarn caelesti osculo dignaberis,
tali sponso coniungeris, a tali marito fecundaberis." Ibid., p. 104.

67. On the hesitancy of medieval writers to refer to Mary as Sponsa Christi
and their preference for insisting on her role as Mater Christi, thereby keep-
ing the Church as the bride, see H. Barre, C.S.Sp., "Marie et I'Eglise du
Venerable Bede a Saint Albert le Grand," in Bulletin de la Societe Erangaise
d'Etudes Mariales, g (1931), esp. 66-71.

68. "Sermo VIII in Anuntiatione Beatae Mariae"; in FL 193, 234.

69. Commentarius in Cantica, II, xi; in PL 203, 271.

70. PL 203, 194-193. Like other writers who use the mystic kiss symbolism,
Philip explicates the principle of infusion of the Spirit into the soul (here the
Virgin) by a comparison to a real kiss which is, he says, something more than
a meeting of lips. There is also the sweetness of the inner breath which is
infused by the kisser into the one kissed: "In osculo quidem oris non fit sola
exteriora junctura labiorum, sed etiam percipitur et sentitur quaedam ex-
halatio internorum, quae si munda et referta fuerit sapore dulcorato, suavem
quasi spiritum infundit osculans osculato." Ibid., 194.

71. The theme of the Virgin as mother, daughter, and bride at one and the
same time was not restricted to the writings of the theologians. In those mo-
ments of recantation of earthly ladies, when poets turned to this greater
Lady, they too recognized her threefold character. Thus in the early thirteenth
century, the troubadour Aimeric de Belenoi, in a poem addressed to Mary,
Domna, flor d'amor, speaks of her having received a precious reward when at
the birth of Jesus she was mother, daughter, and bride: "Ric jovnal / Aguetz,
tal / Benedeita, gloriosa, / Q'a Nadal / Fos engal / Marie, filha, espoza."
Poesies du Troubadour Aimeric de Belenoi, ed. Maria Dumitrescu (Paris,
^935)' P- 119- The Virgin as mother and daughter of God is sung in the
majestic opening of Dante's great hymn commencing the last canto of the

299

NOTES TO PAGES 73-77

Paradise: "Vergine madre, figlia del tuo figlio." Likewise Petrarch, in his
canzone to the Virgin {Vergine hella, che di sol vestita), which closes his long
history of tormented love, writes: "Vergine pura, d'ogni parte intera, / del
tuo parto gentil figliuola e madre"; but also a little farther on he speaks of
the "three sweet names" that are Mary's in her relation to God : "tre dolci e
cari nomi ai in te raccolti, / madre, figliuola e sposa." Thus she is also
called "Donna del Re," Spouse of the celestial King.

We may add a word here about the depiction of the Virgin and Child in
the manner known in iconography as "Our Lady of Tenderness." This ren-
dering, which became popular in the twelfth century, shows Mary and the
Infant kissing tenderly. One of the most beautiful and justly famous versions
is the Russian icon generally called "The Virgin of Vladimir," now in the
Tretyakov Gallery at Moscow. A fine plate may be seen in Tamara Talbot
Rice's Russian Icons (London, ig6y), p. 41. Although this particular treat-
ment is frequent, the tender love — maternal and filial — is more commonly
manifested by caressing and tender gazing than by the kiss. See Maurice
Vloberg, La Vierge et I' Enfant dans I'art frangais (Paris, 1954), esp. Ch. IV,
"Les tendresses de la Vierge-Mere," pp. 143-177.

72. Iconographie de Tart profane au moyen-dge et a la Renaissance, I (La
Haye, 1931), 474.

73 . 1 am not here concerned with Jewish usage of the kiss between persons
and the conventions and regulations governing the kiss that are to be found
in rabbinical sources. Such questions have been dealt with by Auguste
Wuensche, Der Kuss in Bibel, Talmud iind Midrasch (Breslau, 1911), pp. 59.

74. Pentateuch with Targum Onkelos, Haphtaroth and Prayers for Sabbath
and Rashi's Commentary, II, trans. Rev. M. Rosenbaum and Dr. A. M. Silber-
man (London, 1946), 95 b.

75. Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed [III, 31], translated
with an Introduction and Notes by Shlomo Pines (University of Chicago
Press, 1963), p. 625.

76. In a study of one such interpretation, A. S. Halkin suggests that even
at a very early period there possibly was "a more philosophic or mvstic
approach to the Song than the allegoric method" [i.e., the God-Israel rela-
tionship]. "Ibn 'Aknin's Commentary on the Song of Songs," in Alexander
Mary Jubilee Volume: English Section (New York, 1950), p. 396. However,
there is no documentation in support of this view, nor does the author say
what such an approach could have been like. His study, in any case, is con-
cerned with the philosophic approach, which was a medieval development,
and here he has some observations that are of value to us. This approach,
he says, came from the impact of Hellenized Islam on Jewish culture,"
which fostered a new emphasis on the individual in Jewish theological specu-
lation. Moreover, the spiritual father of the group of commentators who
substituted the individual for the nation as the theme of the allegorv is
Maimonides (p. jq6) in an occasional reference to the Song in his works.

300

NOTES TO PAGES 77-79

Halkin excludes an influence of Maimonides on ibn 'Aknin's commentary
which was claimed by its author to be the first philosophic commentary on
the Song of Songs. In this commentary, says Halkin, "the hero of the Song
is the Active Intellect and man's rational soul is the heroine" (p. 409).
Ibn 'Aknin interprets the Song in this light from the first mention of kisses,
a fact which Halkin feels "leaves much to be desired from the point of view
of development and the other principles of literary composition" (p. 411).
For some observations on other interpreters of the Song in this philosophic
key, see Georges Vajda, U Amour de Dieu dans la theologie jidve du moyen
age (Paris, 1957), esp. pp. 242-246 on Immanuel ben Salomon of Rome
(1265-1330). This book may be profitably consulted for the question of in-
dividual and collective love of God in medieval Judaism.

77. This concern for propriety is found in Rashi. When he glossed the
biblical words "and Miriam died there" to signify that like Moses and Aaron
she too died by a Kiss, he went on to ask and answer : "But why is it not said
with reference to her: [she died] 'by the command [lit. mouth] of God?'
Because this would be no respectful way of speaking about the Most High
God [as it would have reference to a woman] . But of Aaron it says in the
Sedrah [Numbers XXXIII, 38] 'by the mouth of the Lord.' " Pentateuch . . .
and Kashi's Commentary, II, 95 b.

78. The exhaustive studies made by Gershom G. Scholem led him to con-
clude that the Zohar, written in Aramaic, was chiefly the work of Moses de
Leon, a Spanish Jew of the late thirteenth century. The work, however, draws
vastly from earlier sources, i.e., the Babylonian Talmud, the Midrasch
Kabbah, and esoteric texts and traditions not easily identifiable. See Scholem's
views in Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York, Schocken Paperback
Edition, 1961), pp 136-243.

79. The Zohar, translated by Harry Sperling, Maurice Simon, and Dr.
Paul P. Levertoff (London, 1949), III, 293. Quotes from the Zohar are from
this version which, although not a translation of the entire work, is, accord-
ing to Scholem, a "solid and workmanlike translation" as opposed to the
"deliberate falsifications of the French translator, Jean de Pauly." Scholem,
Major Trends, pp. 387-389, n. 34.

80. The Zohar, III, 348-349.

81. Scholem, Major Trends, p. 235. My discussion of the background of
the "mystery of sex" at this point necessarily leans upon Scholem, the most
authoritative modern scholar on Jewish mysticism. Besides Scholem and the
English version of the Zohar itself, I have also found useful Henri Serouya's
La Kabbale (Paris, 1947) and A. E. Waite's The Holy Kabbalah (New York,
n. d.).

82. Of the many passages from the Zohar in which this idea and the
interrelated idea that a man is not one unless he has a wife (i.e., is joined
with the feminine principle) occur, the following may serve as an example:

301

NOTES TO PAGES 79-82

"So in the exposition of the verse, 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord
is one,' we have learnt that 'one' signifies the Community of Israel who clings
to the Holy One, blessed be He, since, as Rabbi Simeon said, the union of
male and female is called 'one,' the Holy One, blessed be He, being called
'one' only in the place where the Female also is, since the male without the
female is called half the body, and half is not one. When, however, the two
halves are united, they become one body and are called one. At the present
day the Holy One, blessed be He, is not called 'one.' The inner reason is
that the Community of Israel is in exile, and the Holy One, blessed be He,
has ascended aloft and the union has been broken so that the Holy Name is
not complete and is therefore not called 'one.' " The Zohar, IV, 340.

83. In the Zohar the only case of sexual symbolism applied to the relation
of a human being to God is that of Moses' "marriage" and "intercourse"
with the Shekhinah, the female principle of the Divinity. G. Scholem writes;
"But while in all other instances the Kabbalists refrain from employing sex-
ual imagery in describing the relation between man and God, they show no
such hesitation when it comes to describing the relation of God to Himself, in
the world of the Sephircth. The mystery of sex, as it appears to the Kabbalist,
has a terribly deep significance. This mystery of human existence is for him
nothing but a symbol of the love between the divine T' and the divine 'You,'
the Holy one, blessed be He and His Shekhinah. The hieros gamos, the 'sacred
union' of the King and the Queen, the Celestial Bridegroom and the Celestial
Bride, to name a few of the symbols, is the central fact in the whole chain
of divine manifestations in the hidden world. In God there is a union of the
active and the passive, procreation and conception, from which all mundane
life and bliss are derived." Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, p. 227. It is
in the context of this mystery of sex symbolism that the kiss image acquires
its special kabbalistic significance.

84. See above, n. 82. In another place the Zohar says : "The male is not even
called man till he is united with the female" (I, 177). The Zohar lays down
regulations on a man's duty to have sexual union with his wife, and it refers
to this as "the glad performance of a religious precept" (I, 139).

83. See The Zahar, IV, 400-401.

86. See Henri Serouya, La Kabbale (Paris, 1947), pp. 266-267; also S.
Karppe, Etude sur Ics origines et la nature du Zohar (Paris, 1901), pp. 67 and
429.

87. The Zohar, IV, 14.

88. hoc. cit.

89. One is reminded of EzechieTs great vision of God on the chariot. There
too the number four figures prominently. The intricate celestial chariot which
is knit together and guided by the Spirit of God is supported by four cherubin
and four wheels which have one likeness. See Ezechiel 1 :i— 21 and 10:9—17.

302

NOTES TO PAGES 82-86

go. The Zohar, IV, 14-15.
91. Ibid., IV, 16.

3 . The Medieval Love Lyric

1. This is not the place to attempt a summary of the controversy over
the question of origins. As to the theory of Arabic origins or dominant in-
fluence, it is again being championed by some scholars; my opinion of it
within the limits that concern this study is given in the body of my text.
In aligning myself with those who have stressed Christian sources, I have
no intention of denying the existence, even the importance of non-Christian
elements. One need not agree in the detail with those critics who seek to
limit and pinpoint the specific Christian sources upon which the troubadours
are sometimes said to depend. But one must, I think, acknowledge the over-
whelming importance of what Leo Spitzer referred to as the "Christian a
priori" for the full understanding of the troubadour love lyric. Even Etienne
Gilson, in the midst of a virgorous attack against the idea of a Christian
influence, asserts that "courtly love is inconceivable save in a Christian
atmosphere" (The Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard [London, 1040], p.
186). My own choice of passages from Christian authors is meant to be
generally indicative of what the troubadours had readily available to them,
as part of their Christian heritage, by way of a psychology of love and
amatory conceits. Here, too, I have naturally focused on what has most
relevance to the present study. In this connection, much of what has been
said in the first two chapters has bearing. As to the kiss image in particular,
I find it surprising that so little attention has been given to its use in trouba-
dour poetry. Its importance, I think, will become clear in the pages of this
chapter, which aims at studying it in a meaningful context.

2. "Fin' Amors-, the Pure Love of the Troubadours, its Amorality, and
Possible Sources," in Medieval Studies, VII (1045), 153 (my italics). Gilson
writes : "It is chimerical to seek out an influence of mystical on courtly love,
beyond a few verbal borrowings. Of all that which defines the one nothing
passed into the definition of the other because no passage from the one to the
other was possible at all" (The Mystical Theolo<^\i , p. 103). This is as exces-
sive in its own way as the interpretation (Wechssler's) that it attacks.

3. "An Inquiry into the Origins of Courtly Love," in Medieval Studies, VI
(1944), 176. }. Huizinga writes: "V\Tien in the twelfth century unsatisfied
desire was placed by the Troubadours of Provence in the centre of the poetic
conception of love, an important turn in the historv of civilization was
effected. . . .Courtly poetry makes desire itself the essential motif, and so
creates a conception of love with a negative ground-note" The Waning of the
Middle Ages (New York, 1954), p. 107.

4. In Epistolam Joannis ad Parthos, Tract. IV, 6; in Oeuvres completes de
Saint Augustin, X (Paris, 1869), 496—497.

303

NOTES TO PAGES 86-88

5. In Joannis Evangelium, Tract. XXVI, 4; in Oeuvres completes de Saint
Augustin, IX (Paris, 1869), p. 549. No less than the body, says Augustine, the
soul has its intense pleasures: "An vero habent corporis sensus voluptates
suas, et animus deseritur a voluptatibus suis?"

6. PG 44, 404. Also in La vie de Moise, ed. and trans. Jean Danielou (Paris,
1955), p. 107.

7. PG 44, 404. Also in La vie de Moise, pp. 107—109.

8. From Glory to Glory: Texts from Gregory of Nyssa's Mystical Writings,
ed. Jean Danielou, S.J., and Herbert Musurillo, S.J. (New York, 1961), pp.
200-201.

9. Ibid., p. 270.

10. Sermones super Cantica, LXXXIV, i, 1. In Opera, II (Rome, 1958), 303.

11. The author of the Epistola ad Severinum de Caritate insists on the

theme. Because God is of an infinite nature his lovers must know neither mea-
sure nor end in their love. Blessed is the hungry soul that hungers only
for what he holds and holds only what causes his hunger. Let your Charity be
persuaded that no one can in the future be satiated by the sweetness of love
just as no one can be filled with it in the present. By this impossibility your
solace will be to have no solace; "De qua impossibilitate solatium tibi sit
nullum habere solatium." And Richard of Saint-Victor notes that in the
fourth and last degree of the "violence" of Charity there is nothing that can
henceforth satisfy the soul's desire. The soul thirsts and drinks, yet in drink-
ing, its thirst is not quenched; the more it drinks the more it thirsts. Ives,
Epltre a Severin sur la Charite; Richard de Saint-Victor, Les quatre degres de
la violente Charite (Paris, 1935), pp. 61-63, As the Song of Songs

has it: "Aquae multae non potuerunt extinguere caritatem" (8:7). William of
Saint-Thierry also says that in divine love satiety does not diminish desire in
the soul, but rather increases it, although anxiety is removed. And in a mood
that is much like that found in Gregory of Nyssa, William asserts that the
way is eternal and to journev forever is to arrive: "Sic semper ire: hoc est
pervenire." De contemplando Deo, ed. Dom Jacques Hourlier (Paris, 1939)/
p. 80. In like manner Juliana of Norwich exclaimed: "I saw him and searched
for him, and I had him and I wanted him. And this, it seems to me, ought to
be our common experience. . . . For he will be seen, and he will be sought"
(Revelations, ch. 10). In Ecclesiasticus (24:29), Wisdom says, "Eat of this
fruit, and you will vet hunger for more; drink of this wine, and your thirst for
it is still unquenched." One of the most famous hymns of the Middle Ages,
Jesu, dulcis memoria (or in its third part, fesu decus angelicum) which deals
precisely with the praise and the search by the soul for its Beloved, echoes this
thought and imagery with the words: "Those who taste you hunger still,
those who drink of you yet thirst" (Qui te gustant, esuriunt,/Qui bibunt,
adhuc sitiunt).

The same concept of the endless search for the Beloved runs through

304

NOTES TO PACES 8 S -89

Muslim mysticism. Abu Yazid was quoted by Al-Ghazali as saying: "If it
were granted unto you to talk with God face to face as Moses did, and to be
filled with the Spirit, and to enjoy the Divine friendship, like Abraham, yet
should you seek what is beyond that, for there is infinitely more to be given
by Him, and if you rest content with that, you are veiled thereby, and this is
the test for such as these, and one who is like them, for they are in the highest
rank." Quoted in Margaret Smith, Al-Ghazdlt, the Mystic (London, 1944),
p. 126. One would think this passage to have been inspired by the writings of
Gregory of Nyssa himself. It is dear, in any case, that early Sufi mysticism
was influenced by Christianity, even in its Platonism.

12. In connection with this idea it is customary to cite the example of
Virgil's Dido and Aeneas. Aeneas forsakes love for something more import-
ant; Dido cannot do without Aeneas. One of the most telling and widely
known denunciations of the sentiment which would make one a slave of
passion is that found in Book IV of Lucretius' De natura rerum. There "ro-
mantic" love is painted as a degrading affair which leads to madness and dis-
order. Lucretius' recommendation (which we may take as the "typical"
attitude of antiquity) is that a man should satisfy his craving for sensual
pleasure without becoming sentimentally involved, as we would say. But of
course the question is much more complex than this and even to offer but a
brief summary would lead to an impossibly long digression. Yet some men-
tion, however inadequate, must be made of Catullus and the Roman elegists
Propertius and Tibullus, who deliberately go counter to the traditional view
that held that love (insofar as the male was concerned) should never involve
the whole personality of man. Those that went too far in love were miscri;
but these poets present the case of those who find a new and secret pleasure
in being so. This attitude brought with it a certain amount of idealization of
the lady who was being raised to a plane of equality with the male insofar as
she was thought to be not only an instrument for the satisfaction of sensual
needs but worthy also of being one's companion. At this point there showed
itself an inevitable psychological development in which the male lover felt
that he "needed" his lady. See L. Alfonsi, "Otium e vita d'amore negli elegiaci
augustei," in Studi in onore di Aristide Calderini e Roberto Paribeni, I (Milan,
1056), 187-209; A. W. Allen, "Elegy and the Classical Attitude toward Love,"
in Yale Class. Stud., 11 (1950), 257 ff.; George Luck, The Latin Love Elegy
(London, 1959). Luck observes that with the Roman elegists "the mistress
becomes the domina, the lover her 'slave' (a metaphor which is as rare in
Greek erotic poetry as it is frequent in Latin elegiac verse). The earliest evi-
dence for this inversion is found in Catullus" (p. 122). It is worth recalling al-
so that in the first century a.d. Plutarch was advancing such extraordinary
ideas as that a woman was worthy of man in all respects and that in the
conjugal relationship love between man and woman could lead to the highest
spiritual values. On Plutarch see L. Dugas, L'amitie antique d'aprcs les
mocurs populnires et Ics theories des philosophes (Paris, 1804), esp. pp. 142—
150; and Robert Flaceliere, Love in Ancient Greece, trans. James Cleugh
(New York, 1962), pp. 182-186.

305

NOTES TO PACES 89-102

13. The Emergence of Christian Culture in the West (New York, Harper
Torchbook, 1958), p. 191. The original title of this work is The Classical
Heritage of the Middle Ages.

14. Conf. VI, 15. Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, I, ed. Whitney J. Oates
(New York, 1948), 89.

15. Oeuvres spirituelles, ed. Edouard des Places, S.J., in the series Sources
chretiennes (Paris, 1955), p. 84.

16. PC 45, 940-941.

17. Bernard's words are from De praecepto et dispensatione (60); in PL
182, 892, but also now in Volume III of Opera, ed. J. Leclercq and H. M.
Rochais (Rome, 1963), 292. The adaptation by Bonaventura that follows
above in the text is from the Soliloquium, in Opera omnia, VIII (Quaracchi,
1898), 49. For both quotations I am indebted to the study by Jean Orcibal,
"Une formule de I'amour extatique de Platon a Saint Jean de la Croix et au
Cardinal de Berulle," in Melanges offerts d Etienne Gilson (Toronto-Paris,

1959) / P- 451-

18. Bruno Snell, The Discovery of the Mind: The Greek Origins of Euro-
pean Thought, trans. T. G. Rosenmeyer (New York, Harper Torchbook,

1960) , p. 66.

19. Des Minncsangs Frilhling, ed. Carl von Kraus (Zurich, 1950), p. 1.

20. Chretien de Troyes, Cliges, ed. Alexandre Micha (Paris, 1957)/ PP-
85-86. The relevant verses are 2777-2814.

21. L'crotique des troubadours (Toulouse, 1963). I discuss Nelli's work in
Appendix II to this book.

22. Et purus quidem amor est, qui omnimoda dilectionis affectione duorum
amantium corda coniungit. Hie autem in mentis contemplatione cordisque
consistit affectu; procedit autem usque ad oris osculum lacertique amplexum
et verecundum amantis nudae contactum, extreme praetermisso solatio; nam
illud pure amare volentibus exercere non licet. Hie quidem amor est, quern
quilibet, cuius est in amore propositum, omni debet amplecti virtute. Amor
enim iste sua semper sine fine cognoscit augmenta, et eius exercuisse actus
neminem poenituisse cognovimus: et quanto quis ex eo magis assumit, tanto
plus affectat habere. Amor iste tantae dignoscitur esse virtutis, quod ex eo
totius probitatis origo descendit." De amore, ed. S. Battaglia (Rome, 1947)/
p. 212.

23. De amore, p. 38. The fact that Andreas does suggest that a man and a
woman who have dwelt long and patiently in pure love may, without loss of
their affection, pass on to mixed love does not erase the theoretical distinction
between the two kinds or forms of love. Nor, for that matter, does any in-
terpretation that would see Andreas's explication of pure love as a satirical
polemic or boutade.

306

NOTES TO PAGES 102-113

24. See Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle
Ages (New York, 1953), pp. 512-514.

25. James J. Wilhelm, The Crudest Month: Spring, Nature, and Love in
Classical and Medieval Lyrics (New Haven and London, 1965), p. 132.

26. On the gloriosa mors, see Christine Mohrmann, "Le latin commun et le
latin des chretiens," in Vigiliae Christianae, I, 1 (January, 1947), 11. The
word gloria, of course, has a long history, and like many other fundamental
words and ideals of the Christian vocabulary it underwent a rich and complex
semantic development in passing from the pagan sphere of ideas into the area
of Christian spirituality. This transposition has been fruitfully studied by
A. J. Vermeulen, The Semantic Development of Gloria in Early-Christian
Latin (Nijmegen, 1936). As is to be expected, the author gives much attention
to the phrase and the idea of the gloria martyrum. Pertinent to the present
discussion, and indeed to the whole question of the influence of Christianity
on the development of medieval secular love literature, is Erich Auerbach's
"Passio als Leidenschaft," PMLA, 56 (1041), 1179-1196.

27. The Cruelest Month, p. 132.

28. Peter Dronke, Medieval Latin and the Rise of European Love Lyric, I
(Oxford, 1965), 285.

29. PG 13, 54.

30. "Multi jam in suis praecordiis sagittas tuas infixas portant, et altius
adhuc eas infigi desiderant. Delectabiter enim et suaviter vulnerati sunt, et
plagas tuas se percepisse, nec dolent, nec erubescunt. O charitas! quanta est
victoria tua! unum prius vulnerasti, et per ilium omnes postmodum
superasti." De laude Caritatis, in PL 176, 975.

31. "Christus amore Ecclesiae vulneratus est in cruce. Prius vulnerasti cor
meum, quando causa amoris tui flagellatus sum, ut te facerem mihi sororem
. . . iterum vulnerasti cor meum, quando amore tui in cruce pendens vul-
neratus sum, ut te sponsam mihi facerem gloriae participem." PL 172, 419.

32. See the edition by G. Dumeige (Paris, 1955), p. 127.

33. "It {fin amors'] was a love that yearned for and, at times, was rewarded
by the solace of every delight of the beloved except for the physical posses-
sion of her by intercourse. Far from being pure in the accepted sense, or
disinterested, it is sensual and carnal in that it allows, approves and encour-
ages the delights of kissing and embracing, the sight of the beloved s nudity
and the touching and lying beside her nude body — in short, in all that pro-
vokes and fans desire." "Tin Amors: The Pure Love of the Troubadours,"
Medieval Studies, VII (1945), 142-145.

34. The phrases in quotes are from A. Denomy, "Tin Amors : the Pure Love
of the Troubadours," Medieval Studies, VII (1945), 164, and Leo Spitzer,
"L'amour lointain de Jaufre Rudel et le sens de la poesie des troubadours," in

307

NOTES TO PAGES 113-120

Romanische Literaturstudien 1956-1956 (Tubingen, 1959), p. 364. (Spitzer's
study first appeared separately in 1944.)

33. The same is true of the poetry of the Sufi mystics, of whom R. A.
Nicholson writes that “unless we have some clue to the writer's intention, it
may not be possible to know whether his beloved is human or divine — indeed
the question whether he himself always knows is one which students of
Oriental mysticism cannot regard as impertinent." Studies in Islamic Mysti-
cism (Cambridge, Eng., 1921), pp. 163-164.

36. Peter Dronke, Medieval Latin, I, 271.

37. Hanns Swarzenski, Monuments of Romanesque Art: The Art of
Church Treasures in North Western Europe, 2d ed. (University of Chicago,
1967), p. 18.

38. Heinrich Kohihaussen, "Das Paar vom Bussen"; in Festschrift Friedrich
Winkler (Berlin, 1959), pp. 29-48, but esp. p. 39.

39. George Fenwick Jones, "The Kiss in Middle High German Literature,"
in Studia Neophilologica, XXXVIll, 2 (1966), p. 207. I owe the references to
the kisses in the Minnesanger that follow in the text to Jones's article, which
mentions them. Jones, however, seems not to have suspected the real signifi-
cance of these kiss allusions, for he says of them that they are an "idle
speculation rather than a fait accompli” (loc. cit.). Moreover, he does not re-
fer to one of the most important (form our point of view) cases of the kiss in
the medieval German lyric, one dealing with the exchange of hearts by way
of the kiss in a poem by Ulrich von Winterstetten which we are soon to con-
sider. Likewise he makes no mention of the kiss in the Provencal poets, and he
somewhat misses the point when he writes: "The scarcity of erotic kisses in
courtly literature reflects the prevailing attitude of this genre toward eroticism
in general; for the courtly poets show considerable moral restraint (or is it
social decorum?) in their treatment of amorous themes" (ibid., p. 205). Jones
refers to a number of cases of the kiss, particularly between men, in medieval
German literature, and although here too I think he has not seen the ultimate
significance of the kiss, his article is valuable for its treatment of the theme of
the kiss as a sign of reconciliation. An interesting observation he makes on
this score is that "the mental association between kisses and reconciliation
was so close that the Middle Dutch word for reconciliation (scene) acquired
the meaning of 'kiss' " (p. 204). We have noted a similar development in the
Gaelic word which comes from pax.

40. Des Minnesangs Friihling, ed. Lachmann, M. Haupt, F. Vogt, newly
edited by Carl von Kraus (Zurich, 1950), pp. 46, 187.

41. The Creek Anthology with an English Translation by W. R. Paton, I
(Loeb Classical Library, 1060), p. 173. Compare the poem by Straton of Sardis
(second century a.d.) in The Greek Anthology (XII, 177).

42. Maurice Valency, In Praise of Love (New York, 1961), p. 26.

308

NOTES TO PAGES 120-127

43. There is a poem in Latin, the charming "'Lydia, bella puella Candida,"
which contains an allusion to the image of the soul being drawn by a kiss.
This image is connected with the highly sensual columbine kiss :

Porrige labia, labra corallina;

Da columbarum mitia basia :

Sugis amantis partem animi;

Cor mi penetrant haec tua basia.

An Anthology of Medieval Latin, ed. Stephen Gaselee (London, 1925), pp.
68-69. The date of this poem is uncertain, and as Gaselee pointed out in his
brief introduction to it, "scholars are not yet agreed whether the little poem
is of late imperial days or a medieval Italian production."

Also to be noted here are the final verses from a poem ("Ecce redit species
et amoris grata voluptas") dating from the late eleventh century according to
its editor, Peter Dronke, in Medieval Latin and the Rise of European Love
Lyric, II (Oxford, 1966), 449. The poem is found in two manuscripts: Roma,
Vat. Reg. lat. 5S5, fol. 3'’, and Escorial, O. HI. 2, fol. loi'':

Murmure grata suo tura favumque ferunt,

Guttura melle fovent, penetrant precordia, replent
Pectora, rimantur viscera, corda traunt.

Alternant animas, laqueataque corpus in unum
Corpora spiritibus pervia corda parant.

Corpora spirituum transfusio languida reddit,

Dumque sibi moritur vivit uterque pari.

Unlike v^hat \ve find in Lucretius (see the Introduction), here are lovers whose
entwined bodies do seem to merge into one. Moreover, there is an exchange of
soids, and their hearts become penetrable by way of their spirits; they trans-
fuse or exchange spirits by which their bodies are revived. And thus each
dying to itself lives in the other. These motifs make it necessary, I think, to
see the lovers as kissing; it is by the kiss that the exchange of souls and spirits
takes place.

4. Medieval Love Legends

1. The situational irony of this episode of the Flarnenca was first touched
on briefly but pointedly by Phillip Damon whose observations have served to
stimulate my own comments on the scene. Besides reminding us that puns on
the liturgical phrase "to offer the Pax" were a commonplace of the medieval
French scrino amatoriiis, Damon notes of the Flarnenca that "The various
stages and crises of the courtship are all ingeniously drawn into analogies
with the forms of the liturgy or the facts of church history. The narrative
explores the full range of ironic incongruity between the sacred format and
the profane intention of Guillaume^s enterprise." "Courtesy and Comedy in
Le Roman dc Flarnenca," Romance Philology, XVII (February, 1964), 609-
610.

309

NOTES TO PAGES 129-131

2. The ritualistic nature of this kiss and the role of Galehaut as a witness in
a ceremonial sense were perceived by Vincenzo Crescini, who noted the re-
semblance to the use of the kiss in the betrothal ceremony and in the cere-
mony attached to the act of feudal homage. "11 bacio di Ginevra e il bacio di
Paolo," in Stiidi Danteschi, III (1921), 5—57. Crescini's article is more than a
confrontation of the kiss in the Lancelot romance and the kiss of Paolo and
Francesca in Dante's Divine Comedy (Inferno, V). The second part (pp. 26-
49) has some references to the attitude to the kiss in the Middle Ages, with
mention of a few examples of the kiss having the character of a rite in the
literature of profane love. It cannot be said, however, that the author realized
the full scope of the significance of the kiss in medieval culture. There is, for
example, no mention of the religio-erotic kiss of the mystics nor of the Song
of Son^s.

3. See F. L. Ganshof, Feudalism, trans. Philip Grierson (New York, Harper
Torchbooks, 1961), p. 78.

4. See A. Restori, Letteratura provenzale (Milan, 1891), p. 32. The Vida of
Raimon-Jordan speaks of the lady receiving the poet-lover as her cavalier
in a ceremony of homage. The acceptance of the homage is solemnized by a
kiss and a ring bestowed by the lady upon the poet.

5. Le Roman de Tristan et Iseut renouvele par Joseph Bedier (Paris, 1946),
P- 39-

6. Ibid., p. 41. This part of Bedier's reconstruction comes from Eilhart von
Oberg's German version. In the romance Gin de Waretoic, written around
the middle of the thirteenth century, there occur two kisses that have an in-
terest for us. As Terry lies suffering from a wound, he is lamented over by
a damsel who says that should he die she will join him. She then falls in a
swoon upon him, kissing his mouth and face:

Sur le cors chai, si se pasma,

Deus! quel doel ele demena!

La boche li baisa e la face.

(5007-5009)

Witnessing this scene is Guy, who consoles the maid and then takes it upon
himself to heal Terry. When this is done, the two men become fast friends.
Guy makes it known that he would like for them to become sworn brothers
(compaignuns) and so forever faithful to one another. Terry is overjoyed and
the two seal this pact with the solemn rite of the kiss :

Atant se sunt entrebaisez,

De lur compaignie ben assurez.

(5061-5062)

Quoted from Gin de Warewic: Roman du XIIP siecle, ed. A. Ewert, I (Paris,
1932), 152, 154.

7. Bedier, pp. 49-30. But see especially the early thirteenth century German
poem Tristan und Isolt by Gottfried von Strassburg, vss. 12042 ff. I see no

310

NOTES TO PAGES 131-138

point in taking up Denis De Rougemont's fanciful notion that Tristan and
Iseult are really in love with annihilation; it is on a par with his theory that
the love poetry of the troubadours was an allegorization of the Manichean-
Catharist heresy.

8. Thomas, Les Tragments du Roman de Tristan, ed. Bartina H. Wind
(Geneva and Paris, ig6o), p. 33.

9. It is worth noting that almost in direct contrast with this is a passage in
the Vita Nuova in which Dante, protesting the absolutely pure nature of
his love for Beatrice, takes the trouble to explain his affirmations that no one
can look steadily at his lady's mouth and that the eyes are the beginning
while the mouth is the end or aim of love. Lest anyone think evil of this,
Dante says, be it known that his lady's salutation, which was an operation
of her mouth, was the only end of his love: "Questa seconda parte [Dante
is analyzing a poem of his own] si divide in due: che ne Tuna dico de li
occhi li quali sono principio d'amore; ne la seconda dico de la bocca, la quale
e fine d'amore. E accio che quinci si lievi ogni vizioso pensiero, ricordisi
chi ci legge, che di sopra e scritto che lo saluto di questa donna, lo quale
era de le operazioni de la bocca sua, fue fine de li miei desiderii mentre ch'io
lo potei ricevere" (XIX, 20). For Dante there was to be no ambiguity in
the word saluto that would cause it to be equated with the idea of a kiss,
for, in this context at least, his purpose is precisely that of making it plain
that it was not kisses from his lady that sustained him or to which he
aspired, but verbal greetings. Dante's beatitude was indeed for a while in
his lady's salutations.

10. Les Fragments, pp. 161-162. We may mention here the frequent
medieval motif of the saint curing a leper by kissing him. In the Abbey of
Saint-Martin de Metz, among the miniature drawings illustrating a Reciieil
de textes sur saint Martin is one dating from the early t\velfth century which
portrays the saint in the act of exorcising two possessed persons and, at
the same time, healing a leper by kissing him on the mouth. (Epinal, MS 73,
fol. 5v) The illustration is reproduced in Jean Porcher, L'enliiminure fran-
gaise (Paris, 1030), p. 21, fig. ig.

11. See Francesco A. Ugolini, I cantori d'argomento dassico (Geneva and
Florence, 1933), pp. 97 ff.

12. Thomas, Les Fragments, pp. 153, 153. There is a remarkable similarity
to this ending in the twelfth century lai Nardsus. It is such that Thomas
may have had the latter poem in mind when he wrote the death scene of
his ow'n poem. The French lai changes the Ovidian story of Narcissus in a
significant way by introducing a real nymph, Dane, who is desperately in
love with the vouth. .“^s Narcissus lies near death from his languishing over
his unattainable image, the nymph comes upon him. She kisses and em-
braces him, raises her lament, and vows that she will die with him. At the
moment of Narcissus' death, she lies beside him, embraces him tightly and
thus expires her own soul: "Ele le baise, ele le tient; / Ele se pasme, puis

311

NOTES TO PAGES 138-141

revient; / Ele I'acole, ele I'embrace; / Baise les eus, baise la face. / 'Ahi!
fait ele, dous amis, / Com estes de la mort soupris! I .... I Lasse, ma
proiiere est la mort! / Or n'i a mais autre confort; / Morir m'estuet de
compagnie, / Car asses mius aim mort que vie.' / Li valles muert. Tame s'en
vait. / La pucele plus pres se trait. / Vers lui se trait par tel air, / Du cors
se fait I'ame partir. / fait Amor qui I'a souprise, / Andui sont mort en
itel guise. / Or si gardent tuit autre amant / Qu'il ne muirent en tel
samblant!" Narcisus (poeme du XIP siecle), ed M. M. Pelan and N. C. W.
Spence (Paris, 1964), pp. 72— 73. The verses, which close the lai, are 987-992
and 999-1010.

In a way, the love-death in the French Narcisus is closer than that in the
Pyramus to what we have in Thomas. The maid does not employ a weapon
to kill herself, but dies by tightly embracing her beloved. The chronology
of the Narcisus and the Pyramus is not ascertained. One theory holds that
they appeared simultaneously. See Narcisus, ed. Pelan and Spence, p. 34.
Without becoming involved in the question of which came first, I would
here only point out that the endings of the two poems suggest a borrowing
from the Pyramus on the part of the Narcisus author. The French Pyramus,
after all, has its ending grounded in the tale as it was told by Ovid, whereas
the Narcisus ending has no foundation in the story as given by Ovid.

13. 1 borrow the language of this sentence from two different passages
in the poetry of John Keats: "We might embrace and die: voluptuous
thought" (Endymion, IV, 739), and "That I may die a death of luxury"
{Sleep and Poetry, 58-30).

14. In this connection, an Italian rifacimento of the French prose romance
adds a detail that speaks almost too plainly. As in the French version, we
read that the lovers remained in their embrace even after death; but now
we also learn that those present in the room (including Iseult's husband.
King Mark!) thought the motionless figures to be not dead biit in a love
swoon or languor: "A braccia a braccia e a bocca a bocca morirono li due
pazienti amanti. E dimorano in tale maniera abracciati; tanto che tutti
quelli di la entro credeano che fussero tramortiti ambendue per amore.
Altro riconforto non v'hae." From the Tristano Kiccardiano, in La prosa
del Duecento, ed. C. Segre and M. Marti (Milan and Naples, 1959), p. 66a.

15. The law which says that love constrains a loved one to love in return
is not only mentioned in Francesca's line from the Inferno ("Amor, ch'a
nullo amato amar perdona") ; it is also seen exemplified in the encounter
between Dante and Casella on the shores of the isle of Purgatory. When
Casella, emerging from the company of newly arrived shades, moves to
embrace Dante, the poet, even before he recognizes his friend, is moved to
reciprocate:

lo vidi una di lor trarresi avante
Per abbracciarmi, con si grande affetto,

Che mosse me a fare il simigliante.

{Purgatorio, II, 76-7S)

312

NOTES TO PAGE 141

The idea is stated again in a later canto from the Purgatorio:

. . . Amore,

Acceso di virtu, sempre altro accese.

Pur che la fiamma sua paresse fore.

(XXII, 10-12)

The principle enunciated by Francesca is perhaps more Christian than
courtly, the great texts on the matter being I John 4: 10-13 and 19. In the
De catechizandis rudibus, which through the centuries was to be one of
the chief texts for the inculcation of Christian instruction, St. Augustine
tells us that because God loved us first we are under an obligation, as it
were, to love him in return. Such is the law of love, in fact, that one can
offer no greater invitation to love than to take the first step in loving.
Nobody should be so cold that though he may refuse to initiate a love he
would refuse to reciprocate a love shown to him. Moreover, this principle
is so true, says Augustine, that we can observe it even in bad love. Thus,
those who would be loved reveal their love. There is no better way to be
aroused to love than to be loved. De catechizandis rudibus, IV, 7. In
Oeuvres de Saint Augustin, XI (Paris, 1949), p- 32. In his De diligendo Deo
(III, 7), St. Bernard writes that those who know they are loved much find
it easier to love more in return: "Facile proinde plus diligunt, qui se amplius
intelligunt: cui autem minus donatum est, minus diligit." Opera, III (Rome,
1963), 124.

16. As for the Pyramus and Thisbe legend, the theme of the burial in
one tomb is already found in Ovid's treatment. There, as Thisbe is about
to follow Pyramus in suicide, she expresses the wish that though she and
Pyramus have been kept apart in life, they may be entombed together.
The wish, in fact, is carried out (Metamorphoses, IV, 153—166), almost as
a confirmation, as it were, of Thisbe's assertion that Pyramus, who it seems
could be separated from her only by death, cannot after all be separated
from her: ". . . quique a me morte revelli / heu! sola poteras, poteris nec
morte revelli" (IV, 152-133). In Thomas's Tristan, when Iseult was fearful
she might die in a shipwreck, separated from her lover, she lamented that
she had hoped to die in his arms and be buried with him in one coffin:
"Car en vos bras quidai murrir, / En un sarcu enseveiliz" (1650—1631),
and in the verses that follow we learn that her desperate fancy led her to
imagine that they could still have one sepulchre. The tomb motif became
more and more elaborated in the Tristan legend. The prose versions give
much attention to the burial accorded the pair by King Mark. One version
has it that the lovers were buried in adjoining tombs but that during the
night a plant grew out of the tomb of Tristan and burrowed its way into
the tomb of Iseult. See Le Roman de Tristan et Iseut, renouvele par Joseph
Bedier (Paris, 1946), p. 220. This particular motif has been studied bv
Giuseppe Cocchiara, "Sulla tomba di Tristano ed Isotta," in his Ccnesi di
leggende, terza edizione riveduta (Palerm.o, 1949), pp. 133-183.

It is not without significance that the same legend of the burial of lovers

313

NOTE TO PAGE 141

in one tomb developed around Dante's couple from Rimini. We find it, in
fact, in Boccaccio's commentary on the Divine Comedy. After describing
how Francesca's husband Gianciotto murdered the adulterous pair and
then fled, Boccaccio concludes : "Furono poi li due amanti, con molte
lacrime, la mattina seguente seppelliti e in una medesima sepoltura."
Trattatello in laiide di Dante e pagine scelte dal "Commento,” ed. G. Ger-
vasoni (Milan, i960), p. 8S. The phrase "con molte lacrime" inserted by
Boccaccio bespeaks the sympathy that readers were prone to give to ill-
fated lovers even when their love was "illicit."

It would be unpardonable to fail to mention another unforgettable medi-
eval pair of lovers — Heloi'se and Abelard. The most tender and even the
most significant legend to develop around this extraordinary couple is that
of a burial in the same tomb. But that is not all. A thirteenth century
manuscript of the Chronicle of St. Martin of Tours records the following
miracle: "She [Heloi'se], indeed, it is said, as she was lying in her last ill-
ness, directed that when she was dead she should be laid in the tomb of
her husband. And when her dead body was carried to the open tomb, her
husband, who had died long before her, raised his arms to receive her, and
so, embracing her, closed them fast about her." Quoted from Enid McLeod,
Helo'ise, A Biography (London, 1938), p. 226. Concerning this legend, E.
Gilson wrote: "The story, thus related is beautiful. But matching legend
for legend, we would much prefer to believe that when Helo'ise joined her
lover in their tomb, she was the one who opened her arms for the embrace.
Helo'ise and Abelard, trans. L. K. Shook (Chicago, 1931), p. 123. But then,
we may note, the story would not correspond to the death scene of Tristan
and Iseult. However, we need not quibble here. Surely this last embrace
was a mutual one.

It is also instructive to compare the character of love in Helo’ise and
Abelard with that of the great love legends of the Middle Ages. What
strikes us greatly is the fact that in this real-life story of medieval passion
it is the woman alone who loves totally, unreservedly; it is Helo'ise ivho
makes the true sacrifice in giving all for love. On the other hand, Abelard,
as a lover, is much closer to Aeneas than he is to a Tristan or to a number
of troubadours. Helo'ise's superiority (if I may so call it) in love has been
recognized by modern critics. Suzanne Lilar, for example, writes that "there
was no common measure — there never had been — between Abelard's love
and that of Helo'ise. AbHard always subordinated love to his career and
his own glory." Aspects of Love in Western Society, trans. J. Griffin (Lon-
don, 1965), p. 79. The same point is made by Aldo Scaglione: "There was
in this woman that perfect harmony of spirituality and naturalism that is
the hallmark of medieval love literature at its best, and the condition for
all truly great love between man and woman : body and soul in unity with-
out quarrel. But Abelard was no match for her." Nature and Love in the
Late Middle Ages (Berkelev-Los Angeles, 1963), p. 29. Professor Scaglione
makes the further point that "public opinion was against this woman in
love, and the time had not yet come for public sympathy toward great
sinners. The sympathy of some of her contemporaries (for example, Peter

314

NOTES TO PAGES 141-143

the Venerable) for Heloise was purely a movement of exquisite hearts and
humane understanding, and did not imply recognition of her revolt, rather
strove to cover it up officially" (p. 29). This is a significant matter. Public
sympathy, as is spoken of here, was not accorded to real persons. In the
world of fiction and the imagination, however, a private sympathy was
fast growing, witness the development of the great love legends in medi-
eval literature. In fact, even the story of Heloise and Abelard, as we have
seen, was taken over by legend and an accompanying sympathy. And it
was the legend that lent to their love that element that Suzanne Lilar feels
it lacked. "Their great love lacked only one dimension, the mystical.
Heloise and Abelard remain realists — great and powerful characters, but
earthly" {Aspects of Love, p. 79). The legend was to correct that.

17. That Dante was influenced by the Tristan legend in its character of
a story of love unto death and beyond is also indirectly evidenced by the
repercussion Dante's episode in turn had on the Italian development of the
Tristan legend. The author of the important fourteenth century Tavola
ritonda says of the love potion drunk by Tristan and the queen that "il
detto beveraggio fue ordinato a sforzare la natura, e a sottomettere la
ragione e la volonta, e dare volonta di piacere." In these words we hear an
echo of Dante's reference to the carnal sinners of the second circle of In-
ferno as those who "la ragion sommettono al talento." But even more in-
teresting is what the Tavola ritonda savs about the effects of the love
potion: "E gli due amanti ebbono una vita e feciono una morte, e credesi
che le anime abbiano uno luogo stabilito insieme." The phrase nna morte
and the idea that the souls of Tristan and Iseult are together (or at least
in one same place) throughout eternity were surely suggested by Dante's
episode. The author of the Italian prose romance, however, was careful
not to frighten or disillusion his readers by revealing just where the lovers
souls were in eternity. The text is quoted from La Tavola Ritonda e I istoria
di Tristano, ed. F.-L. Polidori, I (Bologna, 1864), 122.

18. Expose sur le Cantique, p. 102. Also PL 180, 481.

19. The interpretation of the union of the lovers in Hell as a sign of the
mitigation of punishment goes back (at least in its modern form) to Ugo
Foscolo. For a pointed refutation of the Foscolian type interpretation see
Michele Barbi, "Con Dante e coi suoi interpret!," in Studi Danteschi, XVI
(1932), p. 6. As for Dante's pitv, it is certainly real, but he has pity for
some other souls in Hell also whose punishment is none the less unmiti-
gated. Even in the present canto it is not restricted to the lovers from
Rimini. The poet expressed his sorrow before discovering Paolo and Fran-
cesca among the carnal sinners when Virgil first numbered to him a count-
less horde of the dames and knights of old;

Poscia ch'io ebbi il mio dottore udito
Nomar le donne antiche e i cavalieri,

Pieta mi giunse, e fui quasi smarrito.

(70-72)

315

NOTES TO PAGES 144-147

20. For example, one medieval codex turns the ending of the Pyramus
and Thisbe tale into an appeal for pity for the young couple and a warning
that efforts to thwart the course of true lovers can only prove futile and
tragic, for those who love loyally and strongly will love unto death:

At ainsi fina I'amistie

Des duex amant dont fu pitie.

Cest excemple doit bien noter
Tous ceux qui cuident destourner
Aux vrais amans qu'il ne s'entraiment;

Mais fous sont touz ceux qui s'en pament
Car riens ni vault clef ne fermeure
Ne grief menace ne bateure
Car qui loialment aime et fort
II amera jusqu'a la mort.

In Piramus et Thisbe, ed. F. Branciforti (Florence, 1959), pp. 307-308.

21. De ordine, VIII, 24. In Oeuvres de Saint Augustin, IV, ed. R. Jolivet
(Paris, 1948), 340.

22. Of course, despite Dante's significance as a summing-up of medieval
attitudes — the value of such statements is always relative — the rehabilita-
tion and renewed sympathy for such lovers, in particular for the heroine,
was not long in coming, if, indeed, there was any need for it. Precisely in
connection with Thisbe, for example, Boccaccio's retelling of the tale in his
work Concerning Famous Women (De claris mulieribus) is in the vein of
the medieval French poem. At the end of the tale he comments: "Whoever
feels no pity for them and does not shed at least a tear must be made of
stone. They had loved each other from the time they were children, and
for this they did not deserve a bloody death." Concerning Famous Women,
translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by Guido A. Guarino (New
Brunswick, N. J., 1963), p. 27. We may also recall that in The Legend of
Good Women, Chaucer "atoned" for his earlier misogyny by exalting
heroines like Thisbe, Dido, and even Cleopatra as saints and martyrs of the
religion of love (i.e., of Cupid).

23. The relationship or parallel between the Paolo-Francesca episode and
the medieval love romances, especially the Lancelot-Guinevere legend, has
received much attention. Among the more rewarding studies of this ques-
tion is Renato Poggioli's "Tragedy or Romance? A Reading of the Paolo
and Francesca Episode in Dante's Inferno," in PMLA, LXXII, 3 (June,
1957), of which see especially pp. 336-355. At the conclusion of his study,
Poggioli writes: "There is no doubt that the poet derived the idea that the
reading of the Lancelot romance had been 'the first root' of the passion
and ruin of the two lovers, not on the authority of anv external tradition,
but solely on the inner urgings of his own imagination. If the 'how' and
'why' of Francesca's fall is an invention of Dante's, then its supposed
occasion becomes highly suggestive and significant. The real kiss of Paolo
and Francesca follows the imaginary kiss of Lancelot and Guinevere, as an

316

NOTES TO PAGES 147-150

image reflecting its object in a perspective similar and different at the same
time. . . . The 'romance' of Paolo and Francesca becomes in Dante's hands
an 'antiromance,' or rather, both things at once. As such, it is able to ex-
press and to judge romantic love at the same time" (pp. 357-358).

However, in the matter of love and kisses being inspired by certain
readings, Dante was, in fact, working within a medieval tradition. There
is a passage from the thirteenth century French romance Floris et Lyriopc
by Robert de Blois that has some interesting points of similarity with
Dante's infinitely superior episode. Floris, in the guise of his twin sister
Florie, has intimate access to the company of the beautiful princess Lyriope.
At an appropriate occasion he kisses her: "Souef vers la bele s'encline /
Doucement I'estraint a deux bras. / Emmi la bouche, par soulas, / La baise
sept fois par loisir; / Li grans doucors les fait fremir ... I Un roman
aportei avoient / Qu'eles moult volentiers lisoient, / Pour ce que tout
d'amors estoit. / Et au comencement avoit / Coment Piramus et Tisbe /
Furent de Babilonie ne, / Coment lor pere destornerent / Le mariage des
enfans; / Coment en avint dues si grans, / Qu'en une nuit furent ocis, /
Amdui en une tombe mis." Histoire litteraire de la France (Paris, 1895),
XXIII, 746. (But see also now the recent edition prepared by Paul Barrette,
University of California Press, 1968, p. 105.) Here then is the motif of a
kiss (seven, in fact) inspired by the reading of a tender love story. Not the
least interesting thing here is that the reading which moved this couple
to foresake reserve was the story of Pyramus and Thisbe. The motif of
couples being led to love under the spell of a book was well known in the
Middle Ages. The "author" is generally Ovid, although the particular story
is not usually specified.

24. Dante e la cultnra medievale (Bari, 1942), pp. 83-84. Nardi writes
that "la storia di Francesca e una storia di passione e di peccato, troncata
nell'attimo stesso del primo ed ultimo bacio." And so too in our romantic
moments we are tempted to see the couple eternally united by that kiss
even in the terrible blast of Hell. John Keats, whose own poetry has a
remarkably high number of references to the kiss image in literal and
figurative employment, illustrates this point for us. In the midst of de-
spondency he found relief by luxuriating in the dream of being in Paolo s
place, as we learn from a passage in one of his letters: "The fifth canto of
Dante pleases me more and more — it is that one in which he meets with
Paolo and Francesca. I had passed many days in rather a low state of mind,
and in the midst of them I dreamt of being in that region of Hell. The
dream was one of the most delightful enjoyments I ever had in my life. I
floated about the whirling atmosphere, as it is described, with a beautiful
figure to whose lips mine were joined as it seemed for an age (Letters,
1952, p. 325). The reading also led him to write his sonnet .4 Dream, after
reading Dante's episode of Paolo and Francesca.

25. In Purgatorio, XXVII, 37-42, Dante compares the effect the name
"Beatrice" has on him to that produced on the dying Pyramus at hearing
the name of Thisbe:

317

NOTES TO PAGES 150-154

Come al nome di Tisbe aperse il ciglio
Piramo in su la morte, e riguardolla,

Allor che 'I gelso divento vermiglio;

Cosi, la mia durezza fatta solla.

Mi volsi al savio duca udendo il nome
Che nella mente sempre mi rampolla.

The second allusion to the death of Pyramus occurs in Purgatorio, XXXIII,
69, where the phrase "Piramo alia gelsa" is used to refer to the spotting or
offuscation of Dante's mind. The metaphor depends on the allusion to the
myth that the mulberry fruit which was white became red by being stained
or offuscated with the blood that spurted from Pyramus when he slew
himself. More blood was spilled when Thisbe also killed herself by the
mulberry tree beside Pyramus. Is there perhaps a connection between this
allusion to Pyramus' letting of blood for love ("allor che '1 gelso divento
vermiglio") — which carries with it the idea of the same death of Thisbe —
and Francesca's reference to the death of herself and Paolo by murder (for
love) with the words "noi che tignemmo il mondo di sanguigno" (90)? It
is interesting to note that in his circumstantial account of famous lovers,
Petrarch sees Pyramus and Thisbe as a pair: "Vedi Piramo e Tisbe inseme
a I'ombra" (Triumphus Cupidinis, III, 20). That they are thought of in
connection with their death is evidenced by the reference to the shadow
they stand in, the shadow of the mulberry tree beneath which they slew
themselves. Francesca and Paolo are also specifically referred to as a pair
in Petrarch's listing, and, incidentally, in a way which shows how closely
they were associated with the two illustrious couples, Lancelot and Guine-
vere, and Tristan and Iseult, who are present though not clearly paired:

Ecco quei che le carte empion di sogni,

Lancilotto, Tristano e gli altri erranti,

Ove conven che '1 vulgo errante agogni.

Vedi Ginevra, Isolda e Taltre amanti,

E la coppia d'Arimino che 'nseme
Vanno facendo dolorosi pianti.

(Tr. Cup., Ill, 79-84)

26. Pio Rajna, "Dante e i romanzi della Tavola Rotonda," in Nuova
Antologia, CCVI (May-June, 1920). The pertinent pages are 239-241-

27. Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan und Isold, ed. Friedrich Ranke
(Berlin, 1958), p. 149. Vss. 11897-11920.

28. A medieval manuscript at Paris, B.N., fr. 9561, fol. 8v, has a minia-
ture with a dual scene on two levels. Above are Adam and Eve, naked and
in the act of eating the forbidden fruit from a tree around which a bicepha-
lous serpent has entwined itself. The scene below represents a robed couple
embracing and kissing. The man caresses the face of the woman. Behind
the woman a kneeling demon is tieing the two ends of a cloth with which
he has encircled the couple a little below their waists signifying their

318

NOTES TO PAGES 154-161

carnal two-in-one union. It is^ like the Amiens relief, a dramatized scene
of Concupiscence or Luxuria. An illustration of the miniature may be seen
in Millard Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry, Plate
Volume (London and New York, 1967), fig. 408.

29. 1 am not moved to modify my interpretation by a recent argument
that presents Francesca as a wily, unscrupulous wanton who first took the
initiative in the matter of the kiss, "made advances to her brother-in-law,"
and then in Hell deliberately lies to Dante in her relation of the event in
order "to cover up the part [the leading one] she played in bringing disaster
upon her and her lover." According to this view, Francesca seeks to put
the blame on Paolo in the matter of the kiss, and "in order to offer [to
Dante] a convincing parallel that might have served to influence Paolo,
she must reverse the roles played by Lancelot and Guinevere." The v'iew
is that of Anna Hatcher and Mark Musa, in "The Kiss : Inferno V and the
Old French Prose Lancelot," Comparative Literature, XX (Spring, 1968),
pp. 97-109. Its aim is to explain why Dante has Francesca say, contrary to
what is said in the known versions of the Lancelot story, that it was
Lancelot who gave the kiss to Guinevere when she knew (according to the
authors) that it was the other way around.

30. It will be noticed that in the matter of yearning — for the mouth
of the beloved — it is the man Dante who is shown to be the greater yearner,
here in the earthly paradise as in the Florence of the Vita Nuova. Thus we
have a perfect correspondence with the psychology of love as found in the
Lancelot-Guinevere and Paolo-Francesca relationships centered around the
kiss motif.

5. The Renaissance Neoplatonic Phase

1. "Une formule de I'amour extatique de Platon a Saint Jean de la Croix
et au cardinal de Berulle," in Melanges offerts d Etienne Gilson (Toronto
and Paris, 1959), p. 462.

2 . 1 quote from W. C. Helmbold's translation of the passage in the Loeb
Classical Library edition of Plutarch's Moralia, IX (Cambridge, Mass., and
London, 1961), 367-369.

3. In Book III, 32, of Lives of Eminent Philosophers.

4. Convivium, ed. R. Marcel, p. 156. The idea has a curious precedent
in the early fourteenth century Italian Tavola ritonda. Ghedino, having
fallen in love with Iseult, continued to live — between life and death — as
long as he had hope of having his love returned. But when no hope was
left to him, he died (literally). This, says the author, is proof that he who
loves and is loved in turn lives, but he whose love is without hope of be-
ing reciprocated dies without fail: "E in cio dimostra che chi ama ed ee
rimunerato, campa e vive; e quegli che di suo amore non ee rimunerato.

319

NOTES TO PAGES 161-163

muore sanza niuno rimedio." La prosa del duecento, ed. G. Segre and M.
Marti (Milan and Naples, 1959), p. 690.

5. Convivium, ed. R. Marcel, pp. 156-158.

6. Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Divine Names, trans. C. E. Rolt
(New York, 1951), pp. 105-106. (Bk. IV, iz-13.)

That love in the tradition of Christian spirituality is ecstatic by def-
inition, we have seen. However, we may record a reminder of the fact by
St. Albert the Great, who used the Pseudo-Dionysius as his authority: "It
is of the nature of both spiritual and carnal love ever to proceed and flow
and never to be stationary. Hence Dionysius maintains that divine love
brings about ecstasy in the sense of transport: for it transports the lover
into the beloved and does not permit him to remain in himself." Prima pars
Summae theologiae: Tractatus VII, questio 31, membrum 4, in Opera,
XVII (London, 1651), 185.

7. "Quamobrem amor dicitur, in amante extasim facere, id est, excessum
quendam, quo quasi se traducitur in amatum." In Dionyshim Areopagitam;
in Opera omnia, II (Basileae, 1576), 1068. (Riproduzione in fototipia a cura
di M. Sancipriano con presentazione di P. O. Kristeller, Turin, Bottega
d'Erasmo, 1959.)

8. The reference to Dionysius' thought is made by Ficino at the end of
Oratio III, cap. 1.

9. Paul Oscar Kristeller, The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, trans. Vir-
ginia Conant (New York, 1943), p. 287. (This fundamental work was re-
printed in 1964.) More specifically in reference to this question in Ficino s
Commentary, Kristeller says: "The notion that each lover has lost himself in
the other and given himself to the other is developed in the De Amore,
probably after the model of the Old Tuscan poets" {ibid., p. 281). Ficino's
statement, at the end of the Commentary, to the effect that all he has to
say about love is condensed in Guido Cavalcanti's famous canzone, Donna
me prega, is a magnanimous acknowledgment of a small debt, and certainly
an exaggerated claim for Cavalcanti's poem.

Touching on Ficino's passage John C. Nelson asks: "Did Ficino say that
the lover's soul lives in his beloved because Plato had said so or because
early Tuscan poets said so?" {Renaissance Theory of Love [New York,
1958], p. 83.) Though Nelson asks the question merely to suggest the
difficulty (a real one) involved in trying to trace the sources of many of
the motifs found in Renaissance love treatises, he seems to limit the pos-
sibilities to the two he mentions and is content to note that "Ficino ap-
pears to credit Plato as his source." He does not inquire into what the
Platonic source might be, nor does the nature of his book call for it.

10. Tractatus ascetici, IV, De confabulatione et meditatione circa res
divinas, 2; in PL 184, 267. Of the two biblical texts juxtaposed in this pas-
sage, the first, from the Song 8:6, has already received attention in an

320

NOTES TO PAGES 163-165

earlier part of this study; the second is from Colossians 3 Credit for
calling attention to this motif of love wounding unto death in the medieval
mystics must go to the classic study by Pierre Rousselot, Pour I'histoire du
probleme de I' amour au rnoyen age (Beitrdge zur Geschiclite der Philosopliie
des Mittelalters, Band VI, Heft 6), Munster, 1908. The passage from Gilbert
is quoted on p. 69 of Rousselot's study, which breaks it off, however, after
the first two words of the text from Colossians (Mortui estis . . .)■ The
importance of the Song in Gilbert's text is at once apparent in the motifs
of languor, wound, and death resulting from love.

11. Spiritus Domini, consid. 2; quoted in Andre Combes's important
study. La theologie mystique de Gerson, II (Rome, 1964), 139.

12. The passage occurs in Phaedrus, 255 ff. Part of it may be quoted here:
"And thus he loves, but he knows not what; he does not understand and
cannot explain his own state; he appears to have caught the infection of
blindness from another; the lover is his mirror in whom he is beholding
himself, but he is not aware of this. When he is with the lover, both cease
from their pain, but when he is away then he longs as he is longed for, and
has love's image, love for love (Anteros) lodging in his breast, which he
calls and believes to be not love but friendship only, and his desire is as
the desire of the other, but weaker; he wants to see him, touch him, kiss,
embrace him, and probably not long afterwards, his desire is accom-
plished." Jowett trans., in The Dialogues of Plato, I (New York, 1937)/ 259.
Such a passage would naturally be connected by Renaissance readers (or
readers of any other period) with the androgyne myth of the Symposium,
where there occurs the observation that love is the desire and search for the
whole.

13. Convivium, p. 251.

14. The Lucretian passage in question — part of which I have quoted in
the Introduction to the present study — is from Book IV, but it is too long
to quote here. The important descriptions are contained within verses
T037— 1121. Ficino himself only cites vss. 1052—56 and 1108—14, but the
vAole passage has a bearing on his views, especially Lucretius idea that
the lovers are bewildered in not knowing how to find peace and that they
yearn to know what it is they really desire. (Compare this with what
Aristophanes has to say in Plato's Symposium.) Following Ficino, poets and
theorists of love often recall the verses of Lucretius as a source for the idea
that the desire of lovers is to be transformed into the beloved. Among those
who do so are F. Nobili, L. Domenichi, Tullia d'Aragona, and T. Tasso.

15. Thus immediately after his passage on the death and revival of lovers,
Ficino attenuates the erotic and mystic elements of his discourse by an
insistence on the purely intellectual aspect of the love relationship between
a man and a youth. The exchange that takes place between them is pre-
cisely defined as an exchange of beauty. The mature man absorbs the
beauty of the youth through the eves, that is, by gazing upon it, while the

321

NOTES TO PAGES 165-168

youth absorbs the beauty of the older person by way of the mind's activity.
In this way both profit; the mature man, who has only the beauty of soul,
acquires the beauty of body, and the youth, having only corporeal beauty,
acquires the beauty of soul. This wonderful exchange is both honest and
pleasant. It is perhaps more pleasant for the older man because he enjoys
with both his eyes and his mind; on the other hand, it is more useful to
the youth because, inasmuch as the soul is superior to the body, the at-
tainment of intellectual beauty is more commendable and more precious
than that of corporeal beauty. Any desire to touch (desire for carnal
intimacies) is thus condemned by Ficino as being no part of love but
rather an aberration of the passion of a man who is enslaved by the senses
(II, ix). Convivium, p. 159.

16. Convivium, pp. 152-153.

17. For an appraisal of Ficino's concept of friendship and "Platonic love,"
one must, of course, read P. O. Kristeller, who analyzes Ficino's letters to
his friends in The Philosophy of Marsiho Ficino (above, n. 9). He writes
that for Ficino, "true love between two persons is by nature a common
love for God. In both of them it is based on the original love for God,
which constitutes the essence of human consciousness" (p. 279). In illustra-
tion of this Kristeller quotes from a letter to Giovanni Cavalcanti in which
Ficino says: "Those who worship God with a pious mind, however, are
loved by God. Therefore there are not two friends only, but always neces-
sarily three, two human beings and one Cod ... He unites us into one.
He is the insoluble bond and perpetual guardian of friendship." In another
letter quoted by Kristeller (p. 286) Ficino writes: "So why do you doubt,
oh Alamanno, whether Plato believed that there were several Souls in one
body? There are not several in one, but the contrary seems frequently to
be true when we see that one Soul exists in the bodies of several friends
as the result of the Platonic love." In all this, which is, as Kristeller says,
Ficino's doctrine of "Platonic love," one cannot avoid a comparison with
Christian love and friendship — for example, the idea of Christian fellow-
ship in the Holy Spirit. As for the presence of a third Person, that is God,
in friendship between two men, it is still a fact that Ficino does not call
him Christ. For the text of the two letters mentioned in this note, see M.
Ficino, Opera omnia, I, 2, pp. 634, 716.

18. Marsilius Ficinus Michaeli Mercato Miniatensi dilecto conphilos-
opho suo, in Opera omnia, I, 2 (Basel, 1376), 611. (Riproduzione in foto-
tipia a cura di M. Sancipriano con presentazione di P. O. Kristeller, Torino,
1959, p. 611.)

19. In the Theologia Platonica, too, Ficino makes use of the concept of
the soul dying and reviving in God. Nesca Robb has summarized this aspect
of Ficino s thought: Beatitude for him consists in a supreme act of love
by which the human soul gives itself to God and so becomes assimilated to
Him. Such an act is a voluntary death; it entails the rejection of the life

322

NOTES TO PAGES 168-169

of passion and opinion in which the soul is immersed while it is subject to
earthly conditions. Yet the lover lives again in God and there finds his true
self, and knows himself as he is known. He becomes at once a complete
personality and a sharer of the divine life, since the inmost truth of his
being is the divine activity that dwells in him. The two lives, God's and
man's, are made one while yet remaining two. Since man is made in the
image of God he carries on like though not identical activities. He can
give himself in love to God, because God out of love created him. There is
a reciprocal affection like that of parent and child, but it has its origin in
the parent." Neoplatonism of the Italian Renaissance (London, 1935), pp.
68-69.

20. "Perche se il buono amore, come io dissi, e di bellezza disio, e se alia
bellezza altro di noi e delle nostre sentimenta non ci scorge che I'occhio e
I'orecchio e il pensiero, tutto quello che e dagli amanti con gli altri sen-
timent! cercato, fuori di cio che per sostegno della vita si procaccia, non e
buono amore, ma e malvagio; e tu in questa parte amatore di bellezza non
sarai, o Gismondo, ma di sozze cose. Percio che sozzo e laido e I'andare di
que' diletti cercando, che in straniera balia dimorano e avere non si possono
senza occupazione dell'altrui e sono in se stessi e disagevoli e nocenti e
terrestri e limacciosi, potendo tu di quelli avere, il godere de' quali nella
nostra potesta giace e godendone nulla s'occupa, che alcuno tenga proprio
suo, e ciascuno e in se agcvole, innocente, spiritale, pure." Prose e rime di
Pietro Bembo, ed. Carlo Dionisotti (Turin, i960), pp. 468-469.

21. "L'amore onesto . . . non e generate nel desiderio, come I'altro
[sensual love], ma dalla ragione; ed ha per suo fine principale il tras-
formarsi nella cosa amata con desiderio che ella si trasformi in lui, tal che
di due diventino uno solo o quattro; della qual trasformazione hanno
favellato tante volte e cosi leggiadramente si Messer Francesco Petrarca,
si il reverendissimo cardinal Bembo. La quale, perche non si puo fare se non
ispiritalmente, quindi e che in cotale amore non hanno luogo principalmente
se non i sentiment! spiritali, cioe il vedere e I'udire, e piu assai, come piu
spiritale, la fantasia." Dialogo della Signora Tullia d'Aragona: Della in-
finita di Amore; in Trattati d' amore del Cincjuecento, ed. G. Zonta (Bari,
1912), pp. 222-223.

I do not mean to suggest that the theorists of Platonic love were absolute
and uncompromising in their repudiation of the "lower senses." In fact,
several of them make a hierarchy of the modes of love between man and
woman and allow that there is a form of love which remains good although
it consents to an enjoyment of the senses that goes far bevond the kiss.
This is true even of Tullia d'Aragona herself and of one of the most authori-
tative writers of the time, Benedetto Varchi, who inspired if he did not
actuallv write Tullia's treatise. Varchi distinguishes five types of relation-
ship pertaining to human love, each having its own character and bound-
aries. They go from bestial (or swinish) love to love of soul alone. But I do
not propose to deal here with Varchi's system in detail. I would only point

323

NOTES TO PACES 169-171

out that there is a moment when Varchi forgets himself so far as to say
that it is impossible that good love between man and woman can be per-
fect if, along with their souls, they do not couple their bodies. The reason
for this is that the soul forms a unit with the body. But as he goes on, he
recovers and we see that again the thrust or aspiration of his system is to-
wards a non-corporeal love which may at the most involve the sense of
sight. Bodies simply cannot effect that transformation of lovers which is
the aim of true love. In short, as I already suggested, where the highest
form of "Platonic love" was concerned, the theorists excluded all bodily
intimacies. In Varchi this reasoning occurs in a discussion of the question
"Se nell'amore onesto si sentono passioni." See in Opere di Benedetto
Varchi, II (Trieste, 1859), 542-43. Also see p. 499 in the same volume for
Varchi's careful breakdown of the various modes of love, made in his
discourse on Petrarch's sonnet "S'amor non e . . ." See too p. 199 of the
present study for an example of Varchi's position as poet vis a vis the
"holiest" form of human love and the role of the kiss.

22. Puo dunque per la prima morte, che e separazione solo dell'anima dal
corpo, e non per I'opposito, vedere lo amante I'am.ata Venere celeste e a
faccia a faccia con lei, ragionando della divina immagine sua, e' suoi
purificati occhi felicemente pascere; ma chi piu intrinsecamente ancora la
vuole possedere e, non contento del vederla e udirla, essere degnato de' suoi
intimi amplessi e anelanti baci, bisogna che per la seconda morte dal corpo
per totale separazione si separi, e allora non solo vede e ode la celeste Ve-
nere, ma con nodo indissolubile a lei s'abbraccia, e con baci I'uno in I'altro
la propria anima trasfundendo, non tanto cambiano quelle, quanto che si
perfettamente insieme si uniscono, che ciascheduna di loro dua anime e
ambedue una sola anima chiamare si possono." Commento sopra ima can-
zona de amore composta da Girolamo Benivicni secondo la mente et opin-
ione de' Platonici; in the volume De hominis dignitate, Heptaplus, De ente
et uno, e scritti vari, ed. Eugenio Garin (Florence, 1942), p. 557. Further
references to Pico's Commentary will be from this same edition, which will
be referred to as Commento.

23. Serm. s. Cant. LII, ii, 4; in Opera, II (Rome, 1958), 92.

24. "Moriatur anima mea morte iustorum. . . . Bona mors, quae vitam
non aufert, sed transfert in melius. . . . Verum hoc hominum est. Sed
moriatur anima mea morte etiam, si dici potest, angelorum, ut praesentium
memoria excedens, rerum se inferiorum corporearumque non modo cupid-
itatibus, sed et similitudinibus exuat, sitque ei pura cum illis conversatio,
in quibus est puritatis similitudo." Serm. s. Cant. LII, ii, 4-5; in Opera, II,
92.

23. In a well-known passage from De ente et iino Pico tells his addressee,
Angelo Poliziano, that we are prisoners of a madness of the intellect. For, he
says, we can love God, and by loving him do more good for ourselves and
more honor to him than we can by trying to know him intellectually; yet

324

NOTES TO PAGES 171-174

we persist in the latter course, thereby failing to find what we seek and what
can only be possessed by love. “Sed vide, mi Angele, quae nos insania teneat.
Amare Deum dum sumus in corpora plus possumus quam vel eloqui vel
cognoscere. Amando plus nobis proficimus, minus laboramus, illi magis
obsequimur. Malumus tamen semper quaerendo per cognitionem numquam
invenire quod quaerimus, quam amando possidere id quod non amando
frustra etiam inveniretur." In the volume including the Commento (see n.
22 above), p. 418.

26. Commento, p. 558.

27. The mors osculi is also mentioned by Pico in the eleventh of the
seventy-two Conclusiones "according to his own opinion" (secundum opin-
ionem propriam) : "Modus quo rationales animae per archangelum Deo
sacrificantur, qui a Cabalistis non exprimitur, non est nisi per separationem
animae a corpora, non corporis ab anima nisi per accidens, ut contigit in
morte osculi, de quo scribitur praeciosa in conspectu domini mors sanctorum
eius." Opera omnia, I (Basel, 1572), 108-109.

28. Commento, p. 558.

29. See Phaedo (67) where Plato speaks of the soul reaching pure knowl-
edge only after death, an experience that is possible in this life by means of
a temporary deliverance from the body. Real or pure knowledge is con-
ceived of as a process involving the soul's catharsis or purification, hence a
passing from an inferior condition (its imprisonment in the body) to a
superior condition. Final physical death is a perfect catharsis. In this con-
text, the especial study of philosophers is said to be the separation and re-
lease of the soul from the body. It is pertinent here to recall also that in the
Phaedrus Plato notes that there are two kinds of mania: the one bad, being
caused by disease, the other good, being caused by a divine enrapture or
inspiration. Among the four manifestations of the second kind, the best is
that which is attributed to Venus and her son Eros and is called erotic mania.
This is a divine amatory delirium which does not so much prevent man from
philosophical contemplation as it allows him to soar to and find out the
supreme good which is the lover's quest.

30. In the Symposium (179), Phaedrus points out that whereas the gods
rewarded Alcestis by allowing her to return to life because of her unflinching
readiness to die for her husband, they sent Orpheus away only with a phan-
tasm or apparition of Eurydice because he did not really dare to die for love
as did Alcestis, but rather sought to enter Hades alive. Moreover, they after-
wards punished Orpheus for this offense by causing him to be slain by
women.

31. Commento, p. 535.

32. Theologia Platonica (XVI, cap. viii). In Opera omnia, I (Basel, 1576),
383. Reprinted in facsimile, Torino, 1962.

325

NOTES TO PACES 174-175

33. "Plato cum frequenter contemplationis intentione longe secessisset a
corpora, tandem in ea ipsa abstractione a corporis vinculis decessit omnino.
Theologia Platonica (XIII, cap. ii). In Opera, I, 286. Ficino's statement oc-
curs in a context where he is speaking of philosophers who experienced
ecstatic trances during contemplation. For example, he refers to Porphyry s
testimony that Plotinus had undergone such an ecstasy four times.

34. How easily Pico associated Plato with the patriarchs and their death
is made apparent for us also in a passage from the most famous of his writ-
ings, the Oration on the Dignity of Man. Speaking of the great Christian
themes of peace and concord and the ideal of all humanity as being as one
and finally restored into the One that is God, Pico adopts nuptial symbolism
in elaborating on the motif of the coming of the King of Glory (i.e., Christ)
into the soul that has been cleansed by philosophy and theology: "If she
[i.e., the soul] shows herself worthy of so great a guest, she shall, by the
boundless mercy which is his, in golden raiment like a wedding gown, and
surrounded by a varied throng of sciences, receive her beautiful guest not
merely as a guest but as a spouse from w'hom she will never be parted. She
will desire rather to be parted from her own people, and, forgetting her
father's house and herself, will desire to die in herself in order to live in her
Spouse, in whose sight surely the death of his saints is precious — death, I
say, if we must call death that fulness of life, the consideration of which
wise men have asserted to be the aim of philosophy." I have used the trans-
lation by Elizabeth Livermore Forbes, in The Renaissance Philosophy of
Man: Selections in Translation, ed. E. Cassirer, P. O. Kristeller, J. H. Randall,
Jr. (Chicago, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1948, fourth impression 1956), p. 232.

The reference to the death of God's saints, although ultimately from the
Psalms (115:15), is more specifically an allusion to the death by rapture (i.e.,
the kiss) that Pico found in the kabbalists. As in the Commento, what Pico
means here is a death to the world and the false self in order to live in the
Beloved. The idea that philosophy is a consideration or meditation of death
as the fullness of life implies the same reference to Plato that we saw m
Ficino.

35. That Pico's kiss of union with the celestial Venus refers to a union
between the soul and the Deity as such is attested to by a passage that oc-
curs in his treatise just before the detailed commentary on Benivieni's verses.
The passage anticipates the later one describing the kiss of Venus. In it
Pico explains that whereas some lovers do not get beyond the contemplation
of the beauty of a particular person, the more perfect lovers "recall" a more
perfect Beauty beheld before the soul was immersed in a body. This recol-
lection causes a great desire in the lovers to see that Beauty again and spurs
them to "depart" from their bodies (i.e., thev are no longer subjected to
their physical desires). In this love the movement is from perfection to
perfection until the soul has become angelic, and, burning with this angelic
fire, elevated above all earthly contingencies, is transformed into a pure
spiritual flame, whereupon it soars into the heaven of pure intelligence,

326

NOTES TO PAGES 175-180

finally attaining to its blessed peace in the arms (i.e., embrace) of the first
Father. See Commento, ed. Garin, p. 526. Pico's metaphors are mixed, but the
meaning seems clear enough. The ascensive process to union is described in
basically the same terms as in the later passage except that in place of the
celestial Venus, we have the first Father in heaven.

36. "Puoi dunque considerare, lettore, quanti errori nel prime congresso
commetta el nostro Marsilio confundendo in tutto, sol per questo capo, e
pervertendo cio che d'amore parla. Benche, oltre a questo, in ogni parte di
questo trattato abbia commesso in ogni materia errori, come io credo nel
processo chiaramente manifestare." Commento, p. 488.

Pico's words about those who misinterpret Plato's kiss image suggest that
the Platonic epigram was a current topos in his time and that it was gen-
erally given a "profane" interpretation. The "many" that he refers to, could,
of course, include Aulus Gellius also. But that he had Ficino in mind is
evidenced by the fact that the critical allusion occurs among a cluster of
criticisms aimed at "Marsilio." All these criticisms, including the one in
which Ficino is not specifically named, were suppressed in the edition of the
Commento printed under the aegis of Benivieni. This was almost inevitable,
for at the beginning of the treatise Benivieni himself says that his poem was
written in an effort to reduce to a few verses what Ficino had written of
copiously.

It is also interesting to note, however, that not only is there no reference to
the "wrong" interpretations of Plato's (or Agathon's) "kisses" in the first
printed editions of the Commentary, but that even the specific allusion to
those kisses is suppressed, except for a casual and oblique reference at the
end of the kiss passage. The reading is as follows: "Mostra nel prime verso
Salomone la intentione totale del libro, e Tultimo fine del suo amore, ne piu
oltre ch'al bacio vedremo mai andare ne Salomone, ne Platone, ne qualunque
altro d'amore parlando, del celeste ha ragionato." Opere di Girolamo
Benivieni (Venice, 1524), p. 39.

37. It is not possible to say whether Castiglione is reporting the actual
words or ideas of Bembo in the detail, although authors of such dialogues
in the sixteenth century very likely tried to recall and give as authentic the
statements of the participating interlocutors. At any rate, what Castiglione
has Bembo say about the kiss is all the more interesting since in the Asolani
Bembo does not attribute such remarks to any of the interlocutors, and even
certain others of love's miracles are treated with a degree of skepticism, be-
ing seen as the feigning of poets. On the other hand, it is known that at
Castiglione's request Bembo revised The Courtier, which suggests that the
content of the part attributed to him did not meet with his disfavor.

38. For the original of Castiglione's text, I have used 11 libro del Corte-
giano, ed. V. Gian (Florence, 1947).

39. Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (New Haven, 1958), pp. 130-134.
Wind feels that the Renaissance interpretation of the third century Roman

327

NOTES TO PAGES 180-181

funerary symbolism is essentially right and he offers it as a "corrective" to
some of the modern studies of Roman sepulchral art (e.g., Cumont). I agree
with his view. In a previous chapter we noted that the use of the Psyche
and Eros motif on early Christian sarcophagi indicated the idea of the
blessed union of the departed soul with God in the afterlife; and as we sug-
gested then, there is every reason to believe that its appearance on pagan
sarcophagi (whence Christians borrowed it) must have had an analogous
meaning. It is unlikely, however, that the Christians using the motif in those
early centuries identified their figure of Eros with Death itself as such.

40. One wonders what Pico might have thought of the copulation scenes of
Leda and Zeus in the form of a swan. In his own description of the kiss of
the celestial Venus, we remember, he specified the kiss as the extreme image
to be used in the depiction of divine love.

41. Pagan Mysteries, pp. 130-131. The translation is by Wind. I have
read the Italian text in Giovanni Piero Valeriano's leroglifici overo com-
mentari delle occiilte significationi de gli Egittij, et d'altre Nationi . . . accre-
sciuti di due Libri dal Sig. Cclio Augusta (Venice, 1602), p. 898.

42. "Endimione addormentato sopra un monte, e basciato da Diana. Si
legge appresso i Cabalisti, che senza la morte del bascio non ci possiamo
unir di vera unione co' celesti, ne con Dio. Questo dico, percioche fra il
numero de' piu morti . . . e questa del bascio, della quale Salomone cosi fa
mention nel principio della Cantica: Osculetur me osculo oris sui. II qual
senso per altre parole e piu apertamente detto da Paolo, quando dice: Ciipio
dissolvi, et esse cum Christo. . . . Adunque il corpo essendo quello che ci tien
separati dalla union vera e dal bascio, che vorrebbono fare le cose celesti alle
anime nostre raccogliendole a loro, segue che per la dissolution di quello si
verrebbe a questo bascio. Il che i Theologi simbolici volendo aprire hanno
lasciato nelle lor favole, che Diana . . . questa innamorata di Endimione, cioe
dell'anima nostra, la quale si aspetta la su, desiderosa di poterlo basciare
mentre fugge, I'addormenta di sopra un monte, e havendolo addormentato
puo nel basciarlo satiar le sue voglie." Tutte I'opere di M. Ciulio Camilla
Delminio (Venice, 1566), pp. 136-137.

43. Leone Ebreo presents the image as a rabbinical metaphor referring to
the rapturous death of God's great saints, but at tbe same time, he himself
applies it metaphorically to describe the climax of the mind's highest reach
of contemplation, which is equated with a love ecstasy. See Dialoghi d'amore,
ed. S. Caramella (Bari, 1929), pp. 173-178. Reuchlin and Agrippa are quoted
in connection with the mors osculi by Francois Secret in Les Kabbalistes
chretiens de la Renaissance (Paris, 1964), pp. 39-40. Other examples re-
ferred to by Wind or Secret are in Celio Calcagnini's Orationes, Francesco
Giorgio's Harmonia mnndi, Guy le Fevre de la Boderie's French translation
of the preceding, and Giordano Bruno. Bruno's two allusions to the theme
occur in his De gl’heroici furori. "Appresso descrive la morte de I'anima che
da cabalisti e chiamata morte di bacio, figurata nella Cantica di Salomone."

328

NOTES TO PAGES 181-189

Later, mention is made of "quella morte de amanti che procede da somma
gioia, chiamata da cabalisti mors oscidi. La qual medesima e vita eterna, che
rhuomo puo haver in dispositione [i.e., virtually] in questo tempo et in ef-
fetto neU'eternita." Des fureurs heroiques (De gl'Heroici Eurori), ed. Paul-
Henri Michel (Paris, 1954), pp. 211 and 331.

44. In Opere, ed. A. Seroni (Florence, 1958), pp. 555-556.

45. In Trattati del Cinquecento sidla donna, ed. G. Zonta (Bari, 1013), p.
199.

46. Ibid., p. 329.

47. Discorsi del Conte Annibale Romeo Gentil'huomo ferrarese, di miovo
ristampato . . . (Ferrara, 1586), p. 30. Romeo's work was published in English
in 1598 at London under the title The Courtier's Academic.

48. 11 trattato dell' Amor e Humana di Flaminio Nobili con le posHlle auto-
grafe di T. Tasso, ed. Pier Desiderio Pasolini (Rome, 1893), pp. 24-25. Long
before Nobili, the friar Girolamo Savonarola had condemned the aestheti-
cism of Ficino's amatory doctrine that one could rise from the contemplation
of beautiful earthly bodies (of youths) to the contemplation of spiritual
beauty. In one of his sermons (XXVIII) he says that he would not advise us
to do as it is said Socrates did nor to gaze on a beautiful woman in order to
think on God, for this would be to tempt God: "E' si dice di Socrate che
andava contemplando la bellezza delli giovani per contemplare la bellezza
spirituale per la corporale. lo non consiglio gia te che tu facci cosi ne che vadi
a vedere una bella donna per contemplare la bellezza di Dio: saria questo uno
tentare Iddio." Prediche sopra Ezechiele, I, ed. Roberto Ridolfi (Rome, 1055),
375-

49. 11 trattato delTAmore Humana, pp. 23-24.

50. Dialoghi piacevoli del Sig. Stefano Guazzo (Piacenza, 1387), pp. 387-
388.

51. Ibid., p. 388.

52. From the dialogue "Dell'honore universale," in Dialoghi piacevoli,
pp. 232-233. It will be noted that Guazzo seems to consider the kabbalistic
mors oscidi as a purely eschatological phenomenon rather than also as a
mystic experience possible in this life, as Pico understood it.

53. Opere volgari e latine del conte Baldassare Castiglione (Padua, 1733),
p. ii. Ciccarelli's prefatory letter and notes are reprinted in this edition.

54. Ibid., p. 236, n.

6. The Renaissance-Baroque Age

1. See Introduction and further on in the present chapter.

329

NOTES TO PAGES 189-196

2. One of the better recent dictionaries of sexology gives a definition of
just these expressions: "Soul Kiss: French kiss; deep kiss. A kiss with tongue
contact and stimulation of the interior of the mouth. The tongue kiss is an
intimacy designed to arouse sexual excitement." Hugo G. Beigel, Sex from
A to Z: A Modem Approach to all Aspects of Human Sex Life (New York,
ig6i), p. 387. The famous Kinsey report. Sexual Behavior in the Human Fe-
male (Philadelphia and London, 1953) also gives these same terms along with
an even more detailed description of the amatory or sexual activity they
refer to. It also makes the following observation : "Because of the abundant
nerve supply in the lips, the tongue, and the interior of the mouth, the
stimulation of these areas may be very effective, and orgasm occasionally
results from such deep kissing, even though no genital contact is involved"
(p. 252). What today is most often referred to as the "French kiss" was
known to the French in the sixteenth century as the baiser a ITtalienne.

3. Concerning this erotic meaning of perire, Hans Licht notes an example
in Martial. "The Greek word for lizard means also especially the male mem-
ber. Now we have an epigram of Martial, which runs: 'Spare the lizard
creeping towards you; it desires to fade away in your fingers,' Ad te reptanti,
puer insidiose, lacertae / Parce: cupit digitis ilia perire tuis (XIV, 172)-" In
this context, says Licht, perire means "to pass away in love." Sexual Life in
Ancient Greece (London, 1932), p. 194.

As for the metaphorical sense of dying in an erotic context, classical
antiquity may offer several examples. One occurs in Propertius I, x, where
the poet evokes with enervating pleasure a night in which he beheld a
friend "die" clasped in a sexual embrace: "Cum te complexa morientem,
Galle, puella / Vidimus et longa ducere verba moral"

For another example of the erotic employment of the soul-kiss motif in
Petronius, see the prose fragment 132 of the Satyricon.

4. The Love Poems of Johannes Secundus, ed. F. A. Wright (London, 1930).

5. Te iuvet in nostris positam languere lacertis;

Me iuvet in gremio, vita, cubare tuo,

Et cum suaviolis animam deponere nostris
Eque tuis animam sugere suaviolis,

Sive meam, lux, sive tuam; sed sit tua malim
Ipse tuo ut spirem pectore, tuque meo.

ibid., p. 124.

6. Ibid., pp. 40-42.

7. Ibid., p. 116.

8. Nonne hoc amplexu linguarum alterna meantum
Ora per et fauces, nodo constricta tenaci
Feodera pangit amor; legemque hanc dicit amori,

Ut quoties geminas libuit committere linguas,

Oscula transfundant animas per aperta sequaces.

330

NOTES TO PAGES 196-206

Et pariter curent ut amati in corpora totus
Vivat amans, atque hie versa vice vivat in illo?

Delitiae poetarum scotoriim, I (Amsterdam, 1637), 39.

Among the Neo-Latin poets inspired chiefly by Secundus and who use
the soul-kiss conceit, we may here recall Jean Bonnefon (1554-1614) and
Janus Dousa the Elder (1345-1609). Bonnefon's Pancharis is a cycle of
thirty-two basia in which the conceit is used several times. In the very first
basium, the poet invites his mistress to draw his soul out by a kiss but then
complains that this means death for him. This death is imaged by the vision
of the poet wandering along the banks of the river Styx in the company of
Catullus and Tibullus. But the poet will be avenged by drawing away his
mistress' soul with a kiss, so that she too will die and so make her way to
the world of the shades of famous mistresses, precisely those mistresses of
Catullus and Tibullus. See Delitiae C poetarum belgicorum, I, ed. J. Gruter
(Frankfurt, 1609), 658-659.

In one of the series of twenty-one Basia by Dousa the Elder, we find the
transmission of the soul associated with the deep kiss of nectarine sweetness:
Tu vero dukes mecum coniunge salivas
Oris, et inspirans dentibus ora preme:

Transmittensque animae florem me nectare grate
Proluc, et in partem gaudia nostra iuva.

Delitia C poetarum belgicorum, II, ed. J. Gruter (Frankfurt, 1614), 142,

9. Stavan si stretti quei duo amanti insieme,

Che I'aria non potrebbe tra lor gire;

E I'uno e I'altro si forte se preme,

Che non vi seria forza a dipartire.

Come ciascun sospira e ciascun geme
De I'alta dolcezza, non saprebbi io dire;

Lor lo dican per me, poi che a lor tocca,

Che ciascaduno avea due lingue in bocca.

Orlando innamorato, I, xix, 61. Boiardo's verses have no reference to the
soul conceit. Compare 111 , vii, 29, where the octave concludes with these
lines :

E credo che un bel baso a bocca aperta
Per la dolcezza ogni anima converta.

10. After-Life in Roman Paganism (New York, 1959), p. 59.

11. One of the most felicitous imitations of Olindo's vision is to be found
in Girolamo Graziani's II conquisto di Granata (1650). The enamored Con-
salvo tells Rosalba of his desire to die exhaling his anguished soul into her
beautiful body [bel seno). Though in life he was denied the bliss of being
her consort, he would account it a fortunate death if he could expire his life
into Rosalba's mouth:

Soggiunge il cavalier: lieta mia sorte
Io chiamerei, se permettesse almeno

331

NOTES TO PAGES 206-213

Ch'io potessi esalar con dolce morte
L'afflitta anima mia nel tuo bel seno.

Se poiche non fui vivo a te consorte
Fussi morendo, o me felice appieno!

Fortunato morir oggi mi tocca
La mia vita finir ne la tua bocca.

(XIV, 84)

Also Tassian in its motif and tone is the moment in which Osmino is mortal-
ly wounded by Silvera, of whom he asks the grace of her lips. Silvera com-
plies and "stops" Osmino's pain with her words, and his soul (evidently
ready to make its egress) with her kisses (XVII, 62-63).

12. "Tutto che I'anima non si possa separare da niuna parte del corpo,
nientedimeno intensivamente par, ch'ella sia tutta in quella parte, dove
Tappetito la porta, e pero dice, che tutta era in quel bacio, e tutta in quella
bocca: e che sia vero restarono I'altre membra come se da lei fossero ab-
bandonate languide, e com'egli dice, tremanti." ll Pastor Fido, Tragicommedia
pastorale del molto illustre sig. Cav. Battista Guarini (Venice, 1602), p. 88.

13. The soul-kiss conceit is repeated by Guarini at the end of Act II of the
Pastor Fido, where it is said that the only responsive place to be kissed is on
the mouth because there souls themselves kiss: "Ove I'un alma e Faltra /
Corre e si bacia anch'ella." Guarini also wrote a canzone celebrating the
osculatory ingenuity of lovers. The poem terminates with the kiss on the
mouth and the idea that by such a kiss love joins both the souls and bodies
of lovers. See Rime inedite del Cincjuecento, ed. L. Frati (Bologna, 1918), p.
143.

14. The closest Marino comes to exemplifying these tendencies is in his
scene of the dirge of Venus over the dead Adonis, although here, too, as so
often in this poet, a promising thought is vitiated by a play on words or
conceits. In a departure from Bion's lamenting Venus, who expresses the
desire to have Adonis' last breath kissed into her, in Marino's poem the
grieving goddess wishes to have her immortal spirit die and be entombed in
his breast, which would mean a new life for Adonis. Obviously the vehicle
of transmission of her spirit is the kiss:

Arresta il volo, aspetta tanto almeno
Che '1 mio spirto immortal ti mora in seno.

(XVIII, a6i :7-8)

13. It will be well to note at least one more example in prose. In a novella,
Giovanni Battista Fusconi seems to have remembered Aretino's use of the
soul-in-the-kiss and death image as a witty euphemism for sexual orgasm.
When Cleria a married woman — upbraids a would-be suitor for his too-
ardent attentions, the despairing gallant pleads with her to kill him. But the
cruel Cleria replies that she wants to enjoy his death, whereupon she ac-
cordingly leads him to a bed chamber: "Vuoi dunque ch'io t'uccida, ripiglio
Cleria: cosi risolvo; levati, e vien meco, che hora voglio delitiare nella tua

332

NOTES TO PAGES 213-220

morte. Cio detto apri la porta di un'altra camera angusta, dove era un letto,
e quivi gli fece un laccio con le sue braccia al collo, ne lo disciolse sino che
egli non spiro I'anima ne la sua bocca." Cento novelle amorose dei Signori
Accademici Incogniti (Venice, 1651), Parte seconda, p. 206.

The number of examples of the soul-in-the-kiss image would almost seem
to be endless in Italian authors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I
refrain from giving more instances of it even without commentary, for to do
otherwise would be to make an interminable note. The cases already recorded
are certainly sufficiently representative.

16. Secundus was much admired by the French poets of the sixteenth
century. An anthology of imitations of the Basia was prepared some years
ago by Henri Chamard: Les Baisers de Jean Second, imites par Pierre de
Ronsard et ses disciples 1^00-1600 (Monaco, Editions du Rocher, 1947).
This anthology consists of twenty-five poems by Ronsard; three by Antoine
De Bai'f; three by Jacques Tahureau; four by Olivier de Magny; two by
J. Du Bellay; one by Jacques Grevin; one by Claude de Buttet; thirteen by
Remy Belleau; one by Amadis Jamyn; one by Philippe Desportes; one by
Jean Bertaut.

For some examples of the imitation of the kiss motif from Secundus
among the poets of the Pleiade, see Henri Weber, La creation poetique au
XVP siecle en Prance, I (Paris, 1956), 569 if. Of this theme in the Pleiade
poets, Weber writes; "Dans I'ensemble, ce theme imposait a la Pleiade des
schemas trop fixes et trop rigides pour que la poesie puisse s'y epanouir
librement. Elle apparalt 9a et la dans le jeu des images dont le baiser n'est
plus alors que le simple pretexte" (I, 391). Whatever one thinks of the rea-
soning here, it is certain that in the use of the theme of the kiss these poets,
with the exception of Ronsard, fail to achieve the intense poetic accents
given to it by Louise Labe.

17. An abundance of poetry of kissing even at that time did not neces-
sarily mean that the soul-in-the-kiss image was inevitable. For example, in
the numerous verses (including a series of Basia) on kissing and its delights
by Jacques Tahureau, I find no use of the conceit.

18. This is not to say that Platonic love and its conceits ceased thereafter.
An undercurrent of Platonic love went on, finally gushing forth again in the
following century with Thomas D'Urfee's Astree.

19. For Ronsard's version see Oeuvres completes, I, ed. G. Cohen (Paris,
1950), 162-163.

20. Ibid., I, 442.

21. Oeuvres completes, I, 294—293, But also worthy of note is the echo of
a "mystic" tradition where the poet asks the beloved to inbreathe or trans-
mit her "grace" into him. This motif is quickly followed by the poet's request
for the return of his soul by a kiss;

333

NOTES TO PAGES 220-227

Inspire, en me baisant, ton haleine et ta grace
Et ton coeur dedans moy.

Puis appuyant ton sein sur le mien qui se pame.

Pour mon mal appaiser,

Serre plus fort mon col, et me redonne Fame
Par I'esprit d'un baiser.

22. Ibid., pp. 106-107. Also found in Bai'f is the theme of the beloved's
ambrosial kiss raising the lover to the equal of the gods. See the poem "Ce
ne sont baisers que donne / Ma mignonne," in the Diverses Amours, 1573-
The expression "douce rage d'amour continuel" comes from a Ronsard
chanson on the kiss beginning

Douce maistresse, touche.

Pour soulager mon mal
Ma bouche de ta bouche,

which verses have an almost medieval flavor and recall the medieval poets'
use of the kiss motif of the Song of Songs. Ronsard's poem, however, quickly
goes on in typical Renaissance pagan fashion.

23. Thus Oliver de Magny in Les Cayetez, ed. E. Courbet (Paris, 1871),
p. 14. In the poem "A s'amie," de Magny also envisions himself and his lady
kissing and embracing even in the afterlife as well as living in one another
here. See Les Odes amoureuses de 1559, ed. Mark S. Whitney (Geneva and
Paris, 1964), p. 42.

24. In this context we should record the case (late sixteenth century) of
Marguerite de Valois, who in a letter to M. de Chauvalon gives voice to the
Neoplatonic love conventions, including the idea of the kiss as the true
vehicle for the pleasure of the soul; "Vostre ame veut ce que je veux, et luy
complaisant c'est vous complaire; car Fame est seule Fhomme, qui estant
liee avec le corps, ces deux sens luy suffisent, la veue et Fouye, pour contenter
son desir qui, tout different des appetits du corps, se sent son plaisir d'autant
retranche, que Fon s'adhere aux autres qui ne peuvent estre causes d'amour,
puisqu'ils ne sont desirs de beaute (car Famour n'est autre chose), et la
beaute ne peut estre desiree et aym& que par ce qui la connoist. . . . Ainsy
remplie de cette divine et non vulgaire passion, je rens en imagination mille
baisers a vostre belle bouche, qui seule sera participante au plaisir reserve a
Fame, le meritant pour estre Finstrument de tant de belles et dignes louanges
ou bientost me puisse-je ravir." Memoires et lettres de Marguerite de Valois,
ed. M. F. Guessard (Paris, 1842), pp. 466-467. For this and the preceding
two references I am indebted to my colleague Professor Leonard Johnson.

25. Epistle 98 in The Epistles of Erasmus from His Earliest Letters to His
Fiftieth Year, I, trans. Francis Morgan Nichols (New York, 1962), 203. The
letter was written to Erasmus' friend and champion, Faustus Andrelinus, a
native of Italy, who had become both Court poet and Professor of Rhetoric
and Poetry at the University of Paris.

334

NOTES TO PAGES 228-233

26. Collected Poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt, ed. Kenneth Muir (London,
1949), p. 35.

27. THE EKATOMPATHIA or Passionate Centurie of Love (London,
1869), p. 34.

28. The rhyme was used several times by Giles Fletcher in his canzoniere,
Lida (1593), and even twice in a single Elegy ("Distance of place, my Love
and me did part") :

Happy those lips, that had so sweet a kiss !

For heaven itself scarce yields so sweet a bliss.

And thus kind love, the sun of all my bliss.

Was both begun, and ended, in a kiss.

In An English Garner, VIll, ed. Edward Arber (Westminster, 1896), 462.

29. "Philomela's ode that she sung in her arbor," from Philomela (1592).
In Poetry of the English Renaissance, iyog-1660, ed. ]. W. Hebei and H. H.
Hudson (New York, 1929), p. 155. Philomela adds the warning:

But if a kiss prove unchaste,

Then is true love quite disgraced.

30. Laura; The Toyes of a Traveller, or The Feast of Fancy (London, 1597),
in An English Garner, VllI, 279. Compare Giles Fletcher in sonnet XVI of
Lida :

Then as the vine, the propping elm doth clasp.

Loth to depart, till both together die;

So fold me. Sweet; until my latest gasp!

That in thy arms, to death I kissed, may lie.

31. In King Lear (IV, vii) the "restorative" kiss of balm occurs when Cor-
delia puts her lips to those of her abused and mad father with these words :

O my dear father! Restoration hang
Thy medicine on my lips; and let this kiss
Repair those violent harms that my two sisters
Have in thy reverence made!

32. "I am dying, Egypt, dying; only / I here importune death a while,
until / Of many thousand kisses the poor last / I lay upon thy lips." Antony
and Cleopatra, IV, 15.

In Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis an interesting twist is given to the
kiss motif usually found at the end of the story where Venus kisses the
dying Adonis. In Shakespeare's version, as Venus is lamenting over the dead
youth, a speckled white-and-purple flower springs up from the ground where
Adonis' blood had spilled. This flower is a substitute for or the child of
Adonis. In smelling it, Venus in fact identifies its scent with Adonis' breath
and determines that it shall be kept by her in her breast. There she shall
kiss it forever : "There shall not be one minute in an hour / Wherein I will
not kiss my sweet love's flower" (1187-1188).

335

NOTES TO PAGES 234-238

33. Poems of Bishop Henry King, ed. James R. Baker (Denver, i960), p.
28.

34. The Poems of William Drummond of Hawthornden, ed. Wm. C. Ward,
I (London, 1894), ^ 54 > 1^7/ ^^id ibid., II, 147,

35. The First Set of English Madrigals . . . Newly Composed by John
Ward (London, 1613), p. 499.

36. The Dramatic Works and Poems of James Shirley, ed. Wm. Gifford, VI
(London, 1833), 499. The theme is also found in Shirley's poem "Taking
Leave when his Mistress was to Ride" (p. 421). And in Act II of The Arcadia,
a Pastoral (London, 1754), p. 21, Pyrocles, in love with Philoclea, says to
her : "First let me give my life / Up to these Lips, and take a new one from /
This Kiss."

Another poet who was familiar enough with the thought was Thomas
Carew. In "A Pastorall Dialogue," Celia offers Cleon her lips with the words
"This kisse, my heart, and thy faith keepe," to which Cleon replies in kind :
"This breathes my soule to thee." But it is somewhat more refreshing to find
Carew, in another poem, giving a new twist to the image by having the lover
bitterly complain; "My soule enflam'd with thy false breath, / Poyson'd
with kisses, suckt in death." The Poems of Thomas Carew, ed. Rhodes Dun-
lap (Oxford, 1949), pp. 44, 50.

37. For example, see in Kisses, Being the Basia of Johannes Secundus Ren-
dered into English Verse by Thomas Stanley, 1647 (London, 1927), pp. 2, 9.

38. Thomas Stanley: His Original Lyrics Complete, ed. L. I. Guiney (Hull,
1907), p. 60.

39. Ibid., p. 49.

40. In Chalmers' The Works of the English Poets, IV (London, 1810), 730.

41. The Poems English and Latin of Edward Lord Herbert of Cherbury, ed.
G. C. Moore Smith (Oxford, 1023), p. 41.

42. Concerning Spenser ("the greatest representative of Platonism in Eng-
lish poetry"), however, something more may be said concerning the kiss
image. In the Faerie Queene, when Scudamour and Amoret are finally re-
united following the rescue of Amoret from Busirane, they are "reunited"
as much as is possible by means of a kiss and an embrace which make (liter-
ally) one of the two, as Spenser brings in the Hermaphrodite image also in a
vision which seems to belie Lucretius' opinion (see the Introduction). It is
significant that these verses were replaced in the 1596 version by others:

Lightly he clipped her twixt his arme's twain
And straightly did embrace her body bright.

Her body, late the prison of sad pain.

Now the sweet lodge of love and dear delight;

But she, fair lady, overcommen quite

336

NOTES TO PAGES 238-241

Of huge affection, did in pleasure melt

And in sweet ravishment of soul poured out her sprite:

No word they spake, nor earthly thing they felt.

But like two senseless stocks in long embracement dwelt.

Had ye then seen, ye would have surely thought
That they had been the fair Hermaphrodite
Which that rich Roman of white marble wrought
And in his costly bath caused to be site;

So seemed those two, as grown together quite.

(Ill, xii; 45-46)

43. "To Mr. Philip Warwick, at Paris, June 3, 1634"; in James Howell's
Tamiliar Letters, 10th ed. (London, 1737), p. 255.

44. Chalmers' The Works of the English Poets, V, 596.

45. The same turning away from the senses and such intimacies as the real
kiss is to be noted in some lines from Henry Vaughan which are close in
spirit and language to Donne's verses :

Whilst I by pow'rfull Love so much refin'd,

That my absent soul the same is,

Carelesse to misse,

A glance, or kisse.

Can with those Elements of lust and sence,

Freely dispence.

And court the mind.

The Works of Henry Vaughan, I, ed. L. C. Martin (Oxford, 1914), 13. See
also The Poems of William Habington, ed. K. Alcott (London, 1948), p. 48.

46. Poems of John Donne, 1 , ed. E. K. Chambers (London, 1896), 76.

47. John Smith Harrison, Platonism in English Poetry of the Sixteenth
and Seventeenth Centuries (New York, 1903), p. 161.

48. For a fine review of the discussions on Donne's "The Ecstasie" and,
at the same time, a sound interpretation, see Merrit Y. Hughes, "Some of
Donne's 'Ecstasies,' " PMLA, LXXV (Dec. 1960), 509-518. For a well-argued
interpretation based on the demonstration of the influence of Leone Ebreo's
Dialoghi d'amore, see Helen Gardner s The Argument of The Ecstasy,
in Elizabethan and Jacobean Studies Presented to Frank Percy Wilson (Ox-
ford, 1959), pp. 279-306. But see also A. J. Smith's cogent article, "Donne
in His Time: A Reading of 'The Extasie,' " in Rivista di letterature moderne
e comparate, X (July-Dee. 1957), 260-275.

49. The Poems and Plays of William Cartwright, ed. G. Blakemore Evans
(Madison, Wisconsin, 1951)/ P- 494- I" Cartwright's The Royal Slave there
is a scene in which the lovers, who are listening to strains of beautiful music,
feel their souls being drawn to their ears and in danger of evaporating into
the magical harmony. The lover, in Neoplatonic fashion, suggests that he

337

NOTES TO PAGES 241-243

and his lady kiss, for in this way their souls will return and then come to
their mouths. It also will give them the opportunity to exchange their souls
with one another:

Let's kiss and call them backe againe.

Now let's orderly conveigh

Our soules into each other's Brest
Where interchanged let them stay
Slumbering in a melting rest.

(II, iii)

The Poems and Plays of William Cartwright, p. 212.

50. The Complete Works in Verse and Prose of Abraham Cowley, I, ed.

A. B. Grosart (Edinburgh, 1881), 119.

51. Venus and Anchises (Brittain's Ida) and other Poems, ed. Ethel Seaton
(London, 1926), p. 27.

52. The Poetical Works of Robert Herrick, ed. L. C. Martin (Oxford, 1956),
p. 459. See also pp. 174, 240.

53. The song, from The Amorous War, is reprinted in Seventeenth Cen-
tury Lyrics, ed. Norman Ault (New York, 1950), pp. 230-231.

54. The Poems of John Cleveland, ed. John M. Berdan (New Haven, 1911),

p. 68.

35. The Sermons of John Donne, III, ed. G. R. Potter and E. M. Simpson
(Berkeley, 1957), 320-321. That the kiss was sanctioned by a long Christian
tradition was known also to Joseph Beaumont, who finds the betrayal of
Christ the more reprehensible because it was carried out with a kiss which
should be a "mystick stamp" and a "conveyance of the Soul":

Is not a Kiss that Mystick Stamp, which though
It sinks not in, yet deep Impressions leaves :

The smooth Conveyance of the Soul, which through
The closed Mouth her thrilling self derives :

Th' Epitome of genuine Salutation,

And Modesty's most graceful Copulation?

The verses are from Psyche: or Love's Mystery, XI, 22 in The Complete
Poems of Dr. Joseph Beaumont, I, ed. A. B. Grosart (Edinburgh, 1880), 227.

The mystic kiss of the great contemplatives is remembered by John Davies
of Hereford: See Mirum in modum: A Glimpse of God's Glorie, and the
Soules Shape, in The Complete Works of John Davies of Hereford, I, ed. A.

B. Grosart (Edinburgh, 1878), 14.

We have already had occasion (chapter 2) to quote the verses by Richard
Crashawe in which he alludes to the ecstatic death by rapture of St. Theresa
of Avila : "By the full kingdome of that finall kisse / That seiz'd thy parting
Soul, and seal'd thee his."

338

NOTES TO PACES 245-246

Epilogue

1 Alexis Francois, Le premier baiser de I'amour, ou Jean-Jacques Rousseau
inspirateur d'estampes (Geneva, 1920), p. 29. This book deals with the
eighteenth and early nineteenth century engravings inspired by the descrip-
tions Rousseau gave for a series of engravings to accompany his Nouvelle
Heloise. The first of the series is entitled Le premier baiser de I'amour, and
Francois reproduces 25 examples of the theme.

2. "Quoi ! tes yeux attendris ne se baisseroient plus avec cette douce pudeur
qui m'enivre de volupte! Quoi! mes levres brulantes ne deposeroient plus
sur ton coeur mon ame avec mes baisers? Quoi! je n'eprouverois plus ce
fremissement celeste, ce feu rapide et devorant qui, plus prompt que Fed air
. . . moment! moment inexprimable!" Oeuvres completes, I (Paris, Bibli-
otheque de la Pleiade, 1959), 1502. For the passage quoted from the Con-
fessions see ibid., I, 444-445. Lord Byron understood Rousseau's passion to
be a nympholeptic idealism which hallowed the ritual kiss of greeting he
received daily from Mme. d'Houdetot:

But his was not the love of living dame.

Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams,

But of ideal beauty, which became

In him existence, and o'erflowing teems

Along his burning page, distemper'd though it seems.

This breathed itself to life in Julie, this
Invested her with all that's wild and sweet;

This hallow'd, too, the memorable kiss
Which every morn his fever'd lip would greet.

From hers, who but with friendship his would meet.

{Childe Harold, III :7s, 5-9; 79, 1-5)

3. Rousseau had an undying passion for Tasso's Aminta and Cerusalemme
liberata, works upon which his sensibility was nurtured. In La nouvelle
Heloise Tasso is one of only three or four Italian authors quoted (often, it
must be said). The fact that chief among the others are Petrarch and Me-
tastasio is telltale enough. Given Saint-Preux's desire for a Tassian type of
love-death, it is significant and fascinating to discover that Rousseau made
a French prose translation of the Olindo-Sofronia episode from the second
canto of the Italian poet's great epic. We may sample it with part of the
discourse Olindo addresses to Sofronia when the two are tied to the same
stake and in imminent peril of the flames: "O que la mort me sera douce,
que les tourments me seront delicieux, si j'obtiens qu'au dernier moment
tombant Fun sur Fautre, nos bouches se joignent pour exhaler et recevoir au
meme instant nos derniers soupirs." Oeuvres de J. J. Rousseau, XIV (Paris,
1832), 263. The translation was first published in Oeuvres posthumes de ]. J.
Rousseau, II (Geneva, 1781), 283-319.

339

NOTES TO PAGES 247-250

4. Letters of May 14-15; I translate from the 1802 edition, reprinted in
Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis, ed. G. Gambarin (Florence, 1955), pp- 199 “
201. Jacopo's raptures were "experienced" by an even younger Foscolo in a
juvenile literary exercise in terza rima. In Le rimembranze (46-58) the poet
"recalls" his love for Laura [!] in verses that echo Dante's Inferno and Para-
diso. FFere the invocation to death comes as a conclusion to the ecstasy:

Addio diceva a Laura, e Laura intanto
Fise in me avea le luci, ed agli addio
Ed ai singulti rispondea col pianto.

E mi stringea la man : — tutto fuggio
Della notte I'orrore, e radiante
lo vidi in cielo a contemplarci Iddio,

E petto unito a petto palpitante,

E sospiro a sospiro, e riso a riso.

La bocca le baciai tutto tremante,

E quanto io vidi allor sembrommi un riso
Dell'universo, e le candide porte
Disserrarsi vid'io del Paradiso.

Deh ! a che non venne, e I'invocai, la morte?

Even in comparison with these immature verses. Lord Byron's own youthful
lines on the "First Kiss of Love" sound flippant if not hollow:

Oh! cease to affirm that man, since his birth.

From Adam till now has with wretchedness strove;

Some portion of paradise still is on earth.

And Eden revives in the first kiss of love.

5. Ultime lettere, p. 287. There may be a Foscolian echo in the young
Leopardi's account of the ecstasy of the kiss which, significantly enough in
the case of this poet, was "experienced" in a dream: "E io baciarla [the lady's
hand] senza ardire di toccarla . . . svegliatomi subito e riscosso pienamente
vidi che il piacere era stato appunto qual sarebbe reale e vivo, e restai attonito
e conobbi come sia vero che tutta I'anima si possa trasfondere in un bacio
e perder di vista tutto il mondo, come allora proprio mi parve." Ricordi
d'infanzia e di adolescenza, in Tntte le opere, I, ed. Francesco Flora, 5th ed.
(Milan, 1956), 685.

6. The French text is printed in the Pleiade edition of A la recherche du
temps perdu, III, ed. P. Clarac and A. Ferre (Paris, 1954), 1070. There is still
a religious echo in the passage that appears in the established text near the
beginning of La prisonniere : "Chaque soir, fort tard, avant de me quitter,
elle [Albertine] glissait dans ma bouche sa langue, comme un pain quotidian,
comma un aliment nourrissant et ayant le caractere presque sacre de toute
chair a qui les souffrances que nous avons endurees a cause d'elle ont fini par
conferer une sorte de douceur morale." Ibid., Ill, 10.

7. Mervyn Levy, The Moons of Paradise: Some Reflections on the Ap-
pearance of the Female Breast in Art (London, 1962), p. 177.

340

NOTES TO PAGES 250-251

8. Rodin himself commented thus on the marble version of his famous
sculpture: "Undoubtedly the intertwining of The Kiss is pretty, but in this
group I made no discovery. It is a theme treated according to the academic
tradition, a sculpture complete in itself and artifically set apart from the
surrounding world. My Balzac, on the contrary, by its pose and look makes
one imagine the milieu in which he walked, lived and thought." Quoted thus
in Albert E. Elsen's Rodin (New York, 1963), p. 102. With what I say in the
text, I do not mean to contest Rodin's importance in the history of modern
sculpture, the development of which owes much to the sculptor's Balzac
pieces.

9. Malvina Hoffman reported the following conversation with Brancusi:
" 'Here is my laboratory, and here are my pictures of the Temple du Baiser.
You may have them for your book, they are recent ones. Tomorrow I shall
go to see this gateway inaugurated in my country. Through this doorway
one will enter a garden. . . . Do you recognize the patterns on the stone?
Here are the plaster models of the supporting columns; what do you see in
them? ' I thought for a few moments. T see the forms of two cells that meet
and create life . . . like the revelation I once saw through a microscope when
I studied embryology. The beginning of life . . . through love. Am I right?
'Yes you are,' he answered, 'and these columns are the result of years
of searching. First came this group of two interlaced, seated figures in stone
. . . then the symbol of the egg, then the thought grew into this gateway to
a beyond. . . ."' Sculpture Inside and Out (New York, 1939), p- 53 ’ "^^he Gate
of the Kiss (1937) is the entrance to the public park of Tirgu-Jiu, in Romania.
The columns of the Gate contain a decoration of two half-circles touching
each other (the Kiss) and encompassed by a larger circle. The frieze of the
Gate carries a series of the stylized kiss motif.

10. Athena Tacha Spear notes that "the dating of the Montparnasse Kiss
presents a problem. ... If Brancusi had carved that version of the Kiss in
1908, as is often said, then it was not commissioned especially for Tatiana's
tomb. This assumption seems to be confirmed by the caption given to the
Montparnasse Kiss in an early reproduction: 'Now in the Montparnasse
Cemetery, although not originally intended as a memorial. In A Con-
tribution to Brancusi Chronology," Art Bulletin 48, no. 1 (March, 1966),
46.

11 Henriette s'Jacob, Idealism and Realism: A Study of Sepulchral Sym-
bolism (Leiden, 1954). P- 38 - The author adds: "Of this feeling the musee
Adrien Dubouche at Limoges possesses a touching example in the rather
mutilated group called 'bon mariage.' The wife, turning to the right, seems
to invite her husband to the grave. On many tombstones one meets couples
looking at each other with slightly inclined heads" (p. 38). For the idea of
togetherness in death as suggested in a few epitaphs of Greek antiquity, see
Richard Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (Urbana, Illinois,
1962), pp. 58; 247-248.

12. Erwin Panofsky, Tomb Sculpture, ed. H. W. Janson (New York, n.d.).

341

NOTES TO PACES 251-259

p. 29. The text of this beautiful book is based on a series of public lectures
delivered by Professor Panofsky at The Institute of Fine Arts of New York
University in the fall of 1956.

Appendix I

1. Theological and Dogmatic Works (Washington, 1963), p. 78.

2. John Burnaby, Amor Dei: A Study of the Religion of St. Augustine
(London, 1938, reprinted 1947), p. 166.

3. De Trinitate, XV, xix, 37. Oeuvres de Saint Augustin, XVI, 2™*' serie
(Paris, Desclee de Brouwer, 1935), 522. See also De Trinitate, VI, v, 7.

4. At times the dove also was an iconographical symbol of Christ, the
Church, and Christians, as well as of the departed soul enjoying peace in
Paradise. See Friedrich Siihling, Die Tauhe als religioses Symbol im christ-
lichen Altertum, Romische Quartalschrift ftir christliche Altertumskunde
u. fiir Kirchengeschichte, 24 Supplementheft (Freiburg im Breisgan, 1930).

5. Propertius, Elegies, III, 1-2. Of course, love was also metaphorically
associated with war, and the lover was seen as a soldier doing battle. This
is especially true of Ovid who has a poem in which love is compared with
the militia. It begins, "Militat omnis amans et habet sua castra Cupido."

6. St. Cyprian, Treatises, ed. and trans. Roy J. Deferrari (New York, 1958),
p. 104. My italics.

7. Tract, in loh., 6, 4. In PL, 33: 1427.

8. The presence of the angel holding the dove in this depiction of the
Trinity and in some others like it has not, as far as I know, been explained.
Even Millard Meiss, who speaks of the dove in such representations as
"making more explicit the concept of the spiration of the Holy Ghost from
the other two members of the Trinity," is at a loss to explain the angel:
"A complication of meaning, however, appears with the introduction of a
descending angel who seems almost to steer or steady the dove." He says
of it only that it is a "puzzling notion." French Painting in the Time of Jean
de Berry, text volume (London-New York, Phaidon, 1067), p. 132.

The figure of the angel with his function of supporting the dove is indeed
curious. If I were to hazard a guess on the matter, I should say that he is a
carry-over or superimposition of the angel of the Annunciation scene in
which artists so often depicted the descent of the dove-Spirit upon Mary at
the very moment the angelic minister is telling her that that event is soon to
occur.

9. See Dictionnaire d'Archcologie Chretienne et de Liturgie, ed. F. Cabrol
and H. Leclercq, X, part 2 (Paris, 1923), 1881-1889.

10. In passing I would note that the dove may be connected with other

342

NOTES TO PAGES 259-264

aspects of Christian kiss symbolism in iconographical representations. Such
for example may be the case in some Annunciation scenes. Most medieval
illustrations of this motif in which the dove is present as the Holy Spirit and
divine impregnating force show the bird sent from the Father and moving
or hovering near the lap or the ear of the Virgin. The impregnation of the
Virgin by way of the ear, in fact, was the subject of a study by Ernest Jones,
"The Madonna's Conception Through the Ear," in Essays in Applied Psycho-
Analysis (London- Vienna, 1923), pp. 261-359. There are, however, examples
of the Annunciation scene in which the dove is seen near the face or the very
mouth of the Virgin. In this connection we need only recall that Ambrose
had associated the kiss request of the Song with the impregnation of the
Virgin and had spoken of the kiss as the Holy Spirit coming upon Mary:
"Osculetur me ab osculis oris sui; significat spiritus sancti supervenientis
gratiam sicut angelus ad Mariam dixit; spiritus sanctus superveniet in te
. . ." (see p. 71). Another case in which the dove-Spirit may be a kiss is to
be noted in those medieval miniatures which show the dove "inspiring" a
Christian saintly writer. Here again, the dove is usually seen with its bill
in or at the saint's ear, but occasionally at the saint's mouth.

Appendix 11

1. A. J. Denomy, "Fin’ Amors: The Pure Love of the Troubadours, its
Amorality, and Possible Sources," in Medieval Studies, VII (1945), 189.

2. "A Treatise on Love by Ibn Sina, Translated by Emil L. Fackenheim," in
Medieval Studies, VII (1943), 222. This translation was published in con-
junction with Father Denomy's article (see previous note).

3. "Fin' Amors: The Pure Love of the Troubadours," in Medieval Studies,
VII (1945), 142-143 and 157.

4. The French chansons de gestes and their Middle High German imitations
offer many examples of men kissing one another. They have been enu-
merated and discussed by George Fenwick Jones in his article The Kiss in
Middle High German Literature" (Stiidia Neophilologica XXXVIIl, 2, 1966,
pp. 195—210). Jones notes that these kisses most often symbolize a rec-
onciliation or otherwise are used with a legal or diplomatic aim, usually
that of sealing a truce or atonement" (p. 190). Jones, however, does not seem
to be aware of the "primitive" myths or beliefs in the magico-physical na-
ture of the kiss as a bond uniting breaths, blood-breaths, or souls, v\hich
lie behind such man-to-man kisses. Similarly he does not see the mystico-
magical character of the kiss of parting between Tristan and Iseult. His only
remark on this kiss is: "When Tristan and Isolde part in the love-grotto
with a kiss, their kiss also serves to plight their pact to be true to each other
(p. 203). Thus Jones is led to what seems to me an oversimplification in his
conclusion when he states that "sufficient to explain all the kisses in medi-
eval literature, are the many kisses in Scripture . . . kisses of greeting, fare-

343

NOTES TO PAGES 264-268

well, reconciliation, and contract" (p. 209). It is all the more curious that of
all the biblical kisses that Jones enumerates, the kiss of the Song of Songs is
not mentioned; and that is surely the kiss which, while it is not enough to
"explain" the passionate kisses of medieval literature, certainly had the
greatest single influence on them.

5. See L. Alfonsi, "L'amore-amicizia negli elegiac! latini," in Aevum, XIII,
No. 3-4 (July-December 1945), 372-378.

6. The Catullan Revolution (London and New York, 1939), p. 81.

7. Nelli does, however, make much of the kiss episode in the Flamenca but
chiefly for the exposition of the motif of the exchange of hearts.

8. Robert Harlan Gere, "The Troubadours, Heresy, and the Albigensian
Crusade" (Unpublished dissertation, Columbia University, 1956), p. 129.

344

A iSeJecHve 'Bibliography

The nature of this study is such that a complete bibliography in the sense
of one including all works consulted or even simply those quoted by me
would be unwieldy and repetitious. The notes to the text give all necessary
references to the authors and works I have cited. What follows then is a list
of items known to me that deal to some degree specifically with the kiss.
But I must qualify this by saying that although I have allowed some titles
of little or no value to appear here, I have omitted, with the exception of
Martin von Kempen, a number of seventeenth and early eighteenth century
Latin writings on the kiss. The reader can find these older items listed in the
articles on the kiss by F. Cabrol and B. Karle.

Anonymous [Docteur ]. Ls bciiser: etude litteraire et histovicjue.

Nancy, 188?. (300 copies printed.)

Anonymous. "The Theory and Practice of Osculation,' North American
Review, CLXXXVI (October, 1907), 315-320.

Bombough, Charles Carrol. The Literature of Kissing. Philadelphia, 1876.
Burton, Robert. The Anatomy of Melancholy, Third Partition [Love-Melan-
choly], Section Two, Member III, Subsection IV. In the London, 1826,
edition, II, 265-268.

Cabrol, F. "Baiser," Dictionnaire d'archeologie chretienne et de liturgie, ed.
F. Cabrol and H. Leclercq, Vol. II, Part 1 (Paris, 1925), cols. 117-130. (First
in 1907 edition, Vol. 11, cols. 117-130.)

Conybeare, F. C. "New Testament Notes," The Expositor, 4th series, IX
(London, 1894), 460-462.

Crawley, A. E. "Kissing," Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. James
Hastings, VII (New York, 1928), 739-744- Also in Crawley's The Mystic
Rose, new edition, revised by Theodore Besterman, I (London, 1927), 338-
359.

Crescini, Vincenzo. "II bacio di Ginevra e il bacio di Paolo," Studi danteschi,
III (1921), 5-37.

Dix, Gregory. The Shape of the Liturgy (Glasgow, 1945)/ PP- 105-110 ("The
Greeting and Kiss of Peace"). ^ ^

d'Enjoy, Paul. "Le baiser en Europe et en Chine," Bulletin de la Societe
d' Anthropologic, IV' Serie, VIII (1897), 181-185.

Donne, John. "Sermon Preached upon Trinity Sunday" (c. 1620), The Ser-
mons of John Donne, III, ed. G. R. Potter and E. M. Simpson (Berkeley and
Los Angeles, 1962), pp. 313-331-

345

THE KISS SACRED AND PROFANE

Du Cange. "Osculum/' Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, editio nova
(L. Favre), VI (Paris, 1938), 72.-y4.

Dyer, T. F. Thiselton. "The History of Kissing," Belgravia, an Illustrated
London Magazine, XLVIII (July-October, 1882), 200-208.

Ellis, Havelock. Studies in the Psychology of Sex, IV, Sexual Selection in
Man, Appendix A (Philadelphia, 1914), pp. 215-222 ("The Origins of the
Kiss").

Encyclopedic Dictiotiary of the Bible, A Translation and Adaptation of A.
van den Born s Bijbels Woordenboek, 2nd rev. ed. 1954—1957, Louis F.
Hartman (New York, Toronto, London, 1963), pp. 1286—1287.

Flauti, Benedetto. Monografia su I'uso del bacio. Naples, 1889. Pp. 34.

Frank, Emma. Der Schlangenkuss. Die Geschichte eines Erlbsungsmotivs in
deiitscher V olksdichtung. Leipzig, 1928.

Gaselee, Stephen. "The Soul in the Kiss," Criterion, II (April, 1924), 349-
359 -

Hofmann, Karl-Martin. Philema Hagion. Beitrage zur Forderung christlicher
Theologie, 2 Reihe, 38 Band, Giitersloh, 1938.

Hopkins, E. Washburn. "The Sniff-kiss in Ancient India," Journal of the
American Oriental Society, XXVIII (1907), 120-134.

Jacobs, Joseph. "Kiss and Kissing," The Jewish Encyclopedia, VII, ed. 1 . Sing-
er (New York, 1904), pp. 315-316.

Jones, George Fenwick. "The Kiss in Middle High German Literature,"
Studia Neophilologica, XXXVIII, 2 (1966), 195-210.

Jungmann, Joseph A. The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Develop-
ment, trans. Francis A. Brunner, II (New York, 1955), pp. 321-332 {"Pax
Domini and the Kiss of Peace").

Kahle, Alb. De oscido sancto. Regiomonti, 1867.

Karle, B. "Kuss, kiissen," Handworterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens,
herausgegeben . . . von E. Hoffmann-Krayer und . . . von Hanns Bachtold-
Staubli, V (Berlin-Leipzig, 1933), cols. 841-863.

Kempen, Martin von [Kempius]. Dissertatio Historico-Philologica gemina:
prior de Osculo in genere ejusque variis speciebus, posterior de Oscido
Judae. Lipsiae, 1663.

. Opus Polyhistoricum, dissertationibus XXV de osculis, subnexisque de
Judae ingenio, vita et fine, sacris epiphyllidibus, absolutum, etc. Franco-
furti, 1680.

Kroll, Wilhelm. Kuss," in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopddie der classis-
chen altertumswissenschaft, Supplementband V (Stuttgart, 1931), cols.
511-520.

Lejeune, Charles. Le baiser," Revue anthropologique, XXVI (January, 1916),
478-482.

Lombroso, Cesare. "L'origine du baiser," La Nouvelle Revue, LXXXIII (1893),
673-680.

. "An Epidemic of Kisses in America," Pall Mall Magazine, XVIII (May-
August, 1899), 544-547.

Malespine, Emile. "The Kiss," Forum, LXVI (July, 1921), 13-22.

346

A SELECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY

. "Le baiser, essai de psycho-physiologie," Mercure de Prance, CXLIII

(November, 1920), 660-693.

Matthews, J. Brander. "The Curiosities of Kissing," Galaxy, XVI (July-
December, 1873), 280-283.

Moroni, Gaetano. "Bacio," Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica, IV
(Venice, 1840), 11-18.

A New English Dictionary, ed. Sir James Murray, V, Part 2 (Oxford, 1901),
PP- 714-715 (“Kiss").

Nyrop, Christopher. The Kiss and its History, trans. Wm. F. Harvey. London,
1901.

Pearson, Norman. "The Kiss Poetical," Fortnightly Review, LXXXII (August,
1904), 291-306.

Pharr, Mary Brown. "The Kiss in Roman Law," Classical Journal, XLII
(April, 1947), 393-397-

Scerbo, Ercole. ll bacio nel costume e nei sccoli. Rome, 1963.

Snodgrass, A. E. "The Kiss," Cornhill Magazine, LXI (October, 1926), 459-
463.

Steinlauf, Nathan T. "The Kiss in Roman Law," Classical Journal, XLI (Oc-
tober, 1945)/ 24- ... „

Tamassia, G. "Osculum interveniens; Contribute alia storia dei riti nuziali,"
Rivista storica italiana, II (1883), 241-264.

Thurston, Herbert. "Kiss," Catholic Encyclopedia, VIII (New York, 1910),
663-665.

Van de Velde, Th. H. Ideal Marriage, Its Physiology and Technique, trans.
Stella Browne (New York, 1937 [1962]), pp. 152-161 (on the kiss and
love-bite as erotic foreplay).

Weber, Henri. La creation poetique an XVP sieclc cn France, I (Paris, 1936),
pp. 369-391.

Wunsche, Auguste. Der Kuss in Bibel, Talmud und Midrasch. Breslau, 1911.

347

Index

Abelard and Heloise: in Pope's poem,
224-245; in one tomb, 314-315
Acts of Perpetua, 17, 32
Agathon. See Plato, distich on
Alexander the Charlatan, 22
Alfonsi, Luigi, 265, jo^ni2
Allegory, Christian, and pagan myths,
32-33, 281115. See also Song of
Songs, Christian interpretations of
Amadeus, Bishop of Lausanne, 72
Amor-amicitia, 100; in Carmina Bu-
rana, log; in medieval love poetry,
266-267. See also Friendship
Andreas Capellanus, 100-102, 111, 125,
177

Androgyne myth, 182-183, 184, 2821155.

See also Hermaphrodite
Aquilano, Serafino, 196-198, 228
Aretino, Pietro, 202-203, 206
Ariosto, soul-kiss in Orlando Furioso,
198-199

Arnaut, Daniel, 94, 113
Arnaut de Mareuil, 96
Art; Indian, 4; Mexican, 6; medieval,
74-75, 130. See also Iconography
Athenagoras, Plea Regarding Chris-
tians, 29

Aulus Gellius, version of Plato's epi-
gram, 159-160, 164, 198
Avicenna, 263
Aytoun, Sir Robert, 196

Baif, Jean-Antoine, 220-221
Baiser acre, in Rousseau, 245—246
Baptism, 18,

Basium (literary genre), 189
Beatrice; contrasted with Francesca and
Guinevere, 156; Dantes desire for
B.'s mouth, 156-157, 311H9
Beaumont, Joseph, 3381155
Beauty, ideal; in Ficino, 164; in Casti-
glione, 176; and amor casto, 183
Belleau, Remy, 220-222
Bembo, Pietro, Asolani, 168; as charac-
ter in 71 Cortegiano, 176-177
Bernart de Ventadom, 96, 102, 10911,

113

Bernart Marti, 93, 113
Bernini; sculpture of Saint Theresa, 111,
2961152

Betrayal, kiss of, 275112, 3381155. Sec
also Judas, kiss of
Bethrothal, kiss of, 40, 41
Binsica. See mors osculi
Bion; Lament for Adonis, 7, 199
Biondo, Michelangelo, 182
Blake, William, 148
Bliss-kiss rhyme, 229
Boccaccio, on Pyramus and Thisbe,
3161122

Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato, 198
Bbische, Wilhelm, Love-Life in Nature,
10

Bonnefon, Jean, 331118
Bossuet, Jacques Benigne (Bishop of
Meaux), 3, 287084

Brancusi, Constantin, Kiss, 250, 341110
Breath; concepts of, 4-6, 2761116; as
soul or spirit, 15, 45, 57-58, 81, 177,
178, 182, 198, 230, 266, 272-271M12;
as divine kiss, 54, 167, 299; as Dove,
257-250. See also Holy Spirit
Briffault, Robert, 2, 272116
Brotherhood, kiss ritual of, 6, 130,
310116, 343114. See also Friendship
Browning, Robert, 21111
Burton, Robert, The Anatomy of Mel-
ancholy, 8, 2741121

Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 339112,
540114

Camillo, Giulio, 181
Capellanus, Andreas. See Andreas Ca-
pellanus

Carew, Thomas, 239; and breath,
5561156

Caritas-cupiditas, 145, 156, 260, 261,
262. See also Luxury
Carmina Burana, 104-109
Cartwright, William, 240, 337
Castiglione, Baldassare, 8, 175, 184, 199,
227, 2741121
Catharist heresy, 268
Cato, 159

349

INDEX

Catullus, 189, 265, 266, 305U12
Cavalcanti, Guido, 118-ng
Cercamon, 112
Chaucer, 3i6n22
Chretien de Troyes, 98, 103
Christian iconography. See Iconography
Christian ritual, and kiss, 12-13, '^7-
See also Peace, kiss of
Ciccarelli, Antonio, 187-188
Cicero, 6i, 265
Claudian, igi

Cleaving (love as), 62, 79, 82, go, 93,
94, 143, 195. See also Union (with
God)

Cleveland, John, 242
Codex Borgia, zy^ni4
Collignon, Maxime, 33
Columbine kiss, i8g, 192, 255-256
Constitutions of the Apostles, 28
Conybeare, F. C., 15
Corneille, Pierre, 225M
Cotton, Charles, 237
Courtly love: the kiss and, 100-104;
Platonic love and, 186; Arabic influ-
ences on, 267-268. See also Love,
courtly (origins of)

Cowley, Abraham, 241
Crashawe, Richard, 69-70
Crescini, Vincenzo, 310^2
Cross, the; eroticized, 65-67, zg^n^o,
296^52; and St. Paul, 64-65, 162;
kissing of, zgyn$6
Cumont, Franz, 199
Curione, Celio Agostino, 181
Curtius, E. R., g, 102

Damon, Philip, 3ogni
Dante, 128, 229, 245, 249, 250, 277016,
312015; Vita Nuova, 118, 123, 31109;
Inferno V, 140-153, 195, 315017;
Purgatory (kiss of peace), 154-155;
and Pyramus legend, 149-150, 317-
025; and Beatrice, 156-157
Davenant, Sir William, 238
Death: as ecstasy, 63-70, 139, 170, 171,
174, 180, 213, 214, 216, 224, 295047,
298057; and kiss (divine), 67, 68,
69- 75- 76, 122, 172, 175- 174- 179-
298056, 301077 (see also Mors oscu-
li); and kiss (lovers'), 105, 135, 137-
140, 147-154, 197, 209, 225, 228,
230, 231-234, 244-248 passim; con-
quered by kiss, 108; conquered by
love, 158-160, 161; glory in, 106-

107; as secular theme, 106; as con-
sequence of kiss, 140, 146-148, 153,
154; of lovers, g, 134-135, 136, 161,
194, 199, 204-206, 233, 251, 294041,
311012, 312014, 316020; as sexual
metaphor, 139, 190-igi, 201, 202,
2060, 209-213, 214-217, 219-220,
221, 236-237, 33003, 332015
Decoignee, Helie, 226
Della Mirandola, Pico: Commento sopra
una canzona d'amore, 169-175, 178,
179, 180, 181, 326
De Lingendes, Jean, 224
De Montreux, Nicolas, 225
D'Enjoy, Paul, 1

Denomy, A. J. (Father), 84-85, 111, 263-
264

De Viau, Theophile, 225
Diadochus (Bishop of Photice), gi
Dickinson, Emily, 251
Dido and Aeneas, 144, 305012
Dolce stil novo, 118

Donne, John, 235, 239, 240; sermon on
kiss, 242-243
Dousa, the Elder,

Dove; as Kiss and Holy Spirit, 253-259;
symbol of lasciviousness, 253-256;
symbol of peace, 256-258. See also
Columbine kiss

Dronke, Peter, 108, 109, 1330, 262
Dryden, John, 2060, 293037
Du Bellay, Joachim, 217-218

Eating, relationship to kiss, 1-2, 210,
27209. See also Eucharist
Ellis, Havelock, 1-2
Elysium (for lovers), 195, 219-220
Erasmus, 226-227

Eros and Psyche (in funerary art), 33,
41, 281053, 328039
Errante, Guido, 260

Eucharist, 3; and kiss, 24-26, 45-46,
2880S4; nuptial symbol, 2870S4
Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History, 19
Eyes (and love), 125, 152, 156, 31109

Fabri, Gian Francesco, 2070
Ficino, Marsilio: commentary on Plato,
158-168, 174; on reciprocal love,
161; on divine love, 166; on beauty,
321015; on friendship, 322017
Tin' amors, g6, 108, 111, 264, 269; kiss
as consummation, 116-117; mystic
nature of, 119; in Tlamenca, 125,

350

INDEX

126. See also Love: courtly (origins
of)

Firenzuola, Agnolo, 182
Flamenca, 124-127, 132
Fletcher, Phineas, 241
Foliot, Gilbert, 72
Folquet de Romans, 120
Foscolo, Ugo, 247-248, 340^14
Frazer, James, 6
Freud, Sigmund, 1
Friedrich von Husen, 117
Friendship: kiss of, 58-59; Christian
view, 59, 61, 165, 166, 293)128; clas-
sical view, 61; as “cleaving," 62;
ritual brotherhood, 99, 265-266; in
Ficino, 163, 164; Neo-platonic, 165;
heterosexual, 178, 265; mystic, 293-

Fromm, Erich, 2821158

Gace Brule, 121
Galehaut, 128, 129, 147, 310)12
Gaselee, Stephen, 7-8, 2741121
Gerson, Jean, 163
Gilbert of Hoy, 64, 163
Cil%amesh, Epic of, 2731112
Gilson, Etienne, 85, 261
Giotto: Kiss of Judas, 29; Meeting of
Anne and Joachim, 73-74
Giudici, Enzo, 21611
Giustinian, Orsatto, 200
Gnosticism, Christian, 20-23
Godfrey of Admont, 72
Goethe, 246-247

Golden Gate (of Jerusalem), kiss at, 73
Goliards, 104-iog

Gottfried von Strassbourg, 131, 152-

153- 152

Creek Anthology, 119
Greene, Robert, 229-230
Greeting, kiss as, 12, 186-187, 3iin9
Guarini, Battista, 20611, 210, 3321115;

Pastor Fido, 207-208, 224, 229
Guazzo, Stefano, 185-186
Gui de Warewic, 310116
Guilhem de Cabestanh, 94
Guilhem Peire de Cazals, 117
Guillaume IX (first troubadour), 104,
112

Guinizelli, Guido, ii8, 262

Harrison, John Smith, 239
Hawthornden, William of, 234
Healing kiss: of friendship, 63; of

saints, 3111110. See also Restorative
kiss

Heart-body (cor-cors) wordplay, 94, 95,
98, 120, 124

Hearts: exchange of, 123, 126, 211, 232;

migration of, 120-123, 124, 161, 234
Heinrich von Morungen, 117
Herbert of Cherbury, Lord, 237-238
Hermaphrodite motif, 223, 3361142, See
also Androgyne
Hermite, Tristan 1', 224
Herrick, Robert, 241
Hieros gamos, 46, 48, 67, ijjniz; hicro-
gamotic rites, 21

Hobv, Sir Thomas, The Book of the
Courtier, 227-228

Holy Spirit: transmission in kiss, 18-
23, 55-56; at Annunciation, 70-73;
as Kiss in Trinity, 54, 58, 253-259,
2921124. See also Breath
Homage (feudal), kiss in, 129, 268
Honorius of Autun, 111
Howell, James, 238

Hugh of Saint-Victor, on love, 36, 51,
63, 110

Hutton, James, 9

Iconography, Christian: Kiss of Judas,
29; pagan symbols in, 32-33; kiss
at Golden Gate, 71-74; two-in-one
motifs, 115—116; lust as kiss, 1541
kiss and dove in Trinity, 253-259;
dove, 342'14/

immaculate Conception, and the kiss,
75

Incarnation, as kiss, 52-53- 7i. 289-290,
2911122

Irenaeus of Lvons, 21
Irony, in Inferno V, 142-143

Jacob, Henriette s', 250-251, 3411111
Jacopone da Todi, 67-68
Jaufre Rude!, 93, 112-113
Jean, Duke of Berry, 258
Johannes Secundus. See Secundus
Jones, George Fenwick, 3081159, 343114
Jonson, Ben, 230

Judaism, medieval: kiss symbolism in,
75-79

Judas, kiss of betrayal, 27-29. See also
Betrayal, kiss of

Kabbaia, 78-83, 172-173, ^79, 181,
3281145

351

INDEX

Keats, John, ■^iyn24
Kempius. See Von Kempen, Karl-
Martin

King, Henry (Bishop), 233
Kiss: origins, 1-4; in art, 4, 5, 6, 29,
73-74, 148, 250; early concepts, 5-
11; in Christian ritual, 12-21, 25-
27, 45-46, 126, 155, 278^27; of be-
trayal, 27-29, 338)155; as impure,
29-30; in mystic union, 31—32, 38-
40, 43, 57, 58, 171-172 (see also
Nuptial symbolism); as terminus
of love, 40, 101, 111-113, 1^9/ 200,
264; and death, 63-70, 105, 135,
137-154, 169-181 (see also Death);
of friendship, 38-61; in Jewish mys-
ticism, 75-83; motifs in medieval
love lyrics, 85-100; as promise, 102-
104; as healing, 107, 113, 117-118,
133, 232; as rapture, 108, 224, 241,
247; as reward, 111-114; as grace,
116, iig; migration of souls in, 120-
123; of homage, 129; as Platonic
union, 158-166, 181-188, 214, 227-
228, 238-240; as sensory delight,
189-196, 200-210, 218, 241; in Ro-
man custom, 199; chaste, 229; dis-
embodied, 238; as Holy Spirit, 253-
239, 292)124. See also Breath; Death;
Incarnation; Love; Peace; Soul;
Trinity. See also Mors osctili
Knowledge and love, 43, 55-56, 77
Kristeller, Paul O., 162, 320)19

Labe, Louise, 217-218
Ladder of love, 184. See also Senses:
hierarchy of

Lancelot and Guinevere, 128-130, 132;
and Inferno V, 145-148 passim, 151-
153 passim
Landri of Waben, 114
Lazar, Moshe, 269
Leopardi, Giacomo, 340)15
Lilar, Suzanne, 314-315
Liturgy, kiss in, 278)127. See also Chris-
tian ritual

Lot-Borodine, Myrrhe, 260, 261
Love: and eating, 1-4 (see also Eu-
charist) ; unifying, 34, 35, 36, 85,
282)158; kiss as terminus of, 40, 101,
111 - 113 / 119/ 100, 264; and knowl-
edge, 55-56, 77; wound of, 64, 106-
107/ 109-111, 117, 163, 321)110;
courtly (origins of), 84, 263-269

(see also Fin' amors); as migration,
90, 91, 93, 94, 95; as union or ex-
change, 95-100 (see also Souls [of
lovers]); pure and mixed, 100, 101,
306)125; sensual, 104, 106, 108; and
eyes, 125, 311119; reciprocal, 141,
160, 161, 313)115; ecstasy of, 161,
162, 208, 320)16; homosexual, 164;
as transformation, 165; as strong as
death, 131, 132, 137-140, 142, 243,
250, 251. See also Yearning; Cleav-
ing; Death; Dove; Holy Spirit; Kiss;
Peace; Platonic love; Revival
Lucian, 22

Lucretius, 3, 164, 192, 272119, 305)112,
321)114

Luxury, vice of, 75, 143; represented by
the kiss, 154. See also Caritas-
cupiditas

Maimonides, Moses, 75-77
Malinowski, Bronislaw, 3, 272119
Marcabru, 260
Marcel, Raymond, 159
Marguerite de Valois, ^■^4n24
Marino, Giambattista, 208-213, 332)114
Marlowe, Christopher, 230
Marot, Clement, 213-214
Marriage: kiss in, 40, 41, 286-287; St.
Paul on, 2841165. See also Nuptial
symbolism
Martial, 256

Martyrdom: and kiss of peace, 17; for
divine love, 63-64, 106, ill, 163; for
profane love, 144, 174, 205; and
mystic union, 276)112; glory of,
joyn 26

Marullo, Michele (Tarchaniota), 193-
194, 218

Mayne, Jasper, 241
Mazzarelli, Giovanni, 201
Michelangelo, 210)1
Minnesanger, 117
Modio, Giovanni Battista, 182
Montaigne, Michel de, 2931157
Mors oscidi (binsica), 70, 122, 172, 179,
180-181, 3251127, 328)145
Moses: as lover of God, 55, 2911114,
3021185; and yearning, 87
Mukerjee, Radhakamal, 4
Mystery religions: kiss in, 22
Mystical Marriage. See Nuptial Sym-
bolism; Song of Songs
Mysticism; erotic language in, 34, 38-

352

INDEX

40, 47, 170, zS^nyo, 2971153 (see also
Song of Songs and Nuptial Symbol-
ism); Trinitarian, 53, 58; Jewish, 172

Nnrcisus (twelfth century lai), 5111112
Nardi, Bruno, 147, ■^zynz4
Nelli, Rene, 99, 264-268
Nelson, John C, 320119
Neo-Latin poetry, 189-196
Neoplatonism: and myths, 180-181; in
Italy, 158-188; in France, 217-226
passim; in England, 226-242 passim;
Neoplatonic kiss, 225-226
Nobili, Flaminio, 184-185
"Nose kiss," 6

Nuptial Symbolism: in St. Paul, 36, 37;
and Orphism, 37; in Origen, 42; and
Eucharist, 46, zSynS^; in St. Ber-
nard, 52-57, 290117; in William of
Saint-Thierry, 57-58, 290116; and
the Cross, 66; and death, 65, 66; in
Jacopone da Todi, 67; and nuns, 68-
69; in kabbalism, 80; wedding of
souls, 238-239; in Pico della Mi-
randola, 3261134. See also Song of
Songs

Nyrop, Christopher, 6, 271111

Old Testament; references to kiss, 12,
275112

Orcibal, Jean, 139

Origen of Alexandria; on spiritual
senses, 39; on Song of Songs, 42-
43; on wound of love, 110
Osculum intellectnale, 61
Osuna (Spain), stone relief, 2741115
Ovid: influence of, in Goliards, 105,
107; in troubadours, 114; kiss in,
iSg, igo, igg, 255-256; Metamor-
phoses, 156

Pagan myths (in Christian iconogra-
phy), 33. See also Eros and Psyche
Panofsky, Erwin, 251
Paolo and Francesca, 140-154, 155, 156,
245, 248-250, 310112, 314,

3161123, 317

Parabosco, Girolamo, 201
Parting, kiss of, 120-121, 125, 127, 151,
132, 231, 234, 235, 239
Pax. See Peace, kiss of
Peace (from erotic kiss): in Carmina
Burana, 103; in classical authors,
256-257

Peace, kiss of, liturgical: origin, 12-13;
as mark of reconciliation, 15; Cony-
beare on, 15; and martyrs, 17-19; in
initiatory rites, 18-19; Church
Fathers, 19, 23-24, 43, 49; and Jus-
tice, 23, 74; in Eucharist, 24-26; as
Pax, 25; in mystic union, 52; in
Plamenca, 127; in Tristan, 130; in
Dante, 134-155; in Proust, 249;
symbolized by dove, 258; and In-
carnation, 289116
Peire Vidal, 102

Petrarch, on legendary lovers, 3181125

Petronius, 190

Philip, Gospel of, 20, 21

Philip of Harvengt, 73

Philo Judaeus, 15

Pico della Mirandola. See Della Miran-
dola, Pico

Piramus et Thisbe (French version),
3161120. See also Pyramus and This-
be

Pistis Sophia, 22, 23, 2781125
Plato: and androgyne myth, 34; distich
on kissing Agathon, 7, 92, 159, 164;
Pico on, 173-175, 3271156; Castigli-
one on, 179; Romei on, 183 (see
also Aulus Gellius); on friendship,
61; interpreted by Ficino, 158-164;
on the kiss, 164, 177; his death as
ecstasy, 174

Platonic love: in Italy, 158-183; kiss
as sacrament in, 169, 221; attacked,
184-187, 217-218; and courtly love,
186; in France, 217-226; in Eng-
land, 226-242; disembodied kiss in,
258; friendship and, 3221117
Pleiade, the, 217
Pliny (the Elder), 256
Plutarch, 159, 3051112
Pneumatology, Pauline, 14, 15, 43
Poggioli, Renato, 3161123
Pontano, Giovanni, 192
Pope, Alexander, Eloisa to Abelard, 244
Pre-Columbian art, 6, 259
Promise, kiss as, 102, 103
Propertius, 189, 265, 3051112
Proust, Marcel, 255-256, 340116
Pseudo-Dionvsius: on kiss of peace, 23;
on death as ecstasy, 65; on yearning,
162

Pyramus and Thisbe, 155-137, 141, 144,
149-150, 3121112, 3i7n25; in one
tomb, 3131116

353

INDEX

Quinn, Kenneth, 266

Raimbaut d'Orange, 122
Rajna, Pio, 151

Restorative kiss; in Carmina Burana,
106, 107, 108; in troubadours, 113;
in Minnesanger, 117 ; and sains, 127,
153, 134, 224; in Serafino, 197; in
Shakespeare, 232-233, in

Baif, 334r:22. See also Revival of
"dead" lovers

Revival of "dead" lovers, 158-160, 161,
ig8, 212, 222, 273ni2
Richard of Saint-Victor, 39, 111, 304«ii
Rinaldo d'Aquino, 122
Robert de Blois: Chastiement des
Dames, 103; Floris et Lyriope,

317U23

Rodin, Auguste, Le Baiser, lyo, 296U52,

34in8

Roman de la Rose, 102-103
Romei, Annibale, 183
Ronsard, Pierre, 218-220
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques ; baiser acre in
La Nouvelle Heloise, 243-246; baiser
funeste in Confessions, 246; and
Tasso, 246, 339^5
Rufinus, iig
Rupert de Deutz, 72
Rustico di Filippo, 95

St. Aelred of Rievaulx: De spirituali
amicitia, 58; Speculum charitatis,
60, 63; and nuptial symbolism, 72-
73; love as movement of desire, 91;
on friendship, 165

St. Ambrose: on kiss of Judas, 28, 29;
on nuptial kiss, 41; on kiss between
God and soul, 43-43; on friendship,
62; on Virgin Mary, 71; on Holy
Spirit, 255; on Dove, 343
St. Anselm (of Canterbury), 267
St. Augustine: on transmission of Holy
Spirit, 18, 19; on kiss of peace, 24,
25; on kiss of Judas, 28; on unifying
love, 35, 36; erotic imagery of, 46,
48-50; on friendship, 62; on death,
64; on the Cross, 66; on yearning,
86; feminine psyche of, 89; on love
as migration and cleaving, 90, 91; on
Sophia, 101; on wound of love, 110;
on amor, 143; on poetry and moral
truth, 144-145; on Platonism, 166;
on the Holy Spirit, 253; on the dove.

258; on spiritual senses, z88ngo; on
love of God, 294U39; on law of love,

3i3ni5

St. Bernard (of Clairvaux) : and nuptial
symbolism, 52-56; on friendship, 62;
on death as ecstasy, 65, 295^47;
erotic imagery of Cross, 66; on
yearning, 88, 91; on two-in-one mo-
tif, 98-99; and Pico della Mirandola,
171; on Holy Spirit as kiss, 253-257;
on taw of love, 313U15
St. Bonaventura: on the Cross, 66,
zgynyp; his formula of love as an
ecstasy, 91 ; on the kiss as the Incar-
nate Word, z8gn6

St. Clement (of Alexandria) ; on kiss of
peace, 19; on dangers in kiss, 30
St. Cyprian: kiss as union with God,
31, 33; on the dove, 258
St. Cyril (of Jerusalem), and kiss of
peace, 24

St. Francis (of Assisi), stigmatization of,
68

St. Francis (of Sales) : on wound of love,
111; on death by divine rapture,
298^57

St. Gertrude the Great, and death by
kiss, 68

St. Gregory of Nyssa: on Song of
Songs as allegory, 38; on the senses,
49; on yearning, 86, 87; on love as
migration, 91

St. Gregory the Great, zgoni4
St. Hippolytus, on initiatory kiss, 17,
19, 20

St. Jerome: on wound of love, 110; on
marriage, 284^65; on the Incarna-
tion as a kiss, z6gn6
St. John Chrysostom: on kiss as union
of souls, 26, 27; on Christians as
the temples of Christ, 27
St. John of the Cross, on wound of love,
111

St. Juliana Falconieri, death as ecstasy,
69

St. Justin Martyr, on liturgical kiss, 17
St. Paul: on kiss, 12-16 passim-, and
nuptial symbolism, 36-37, 67, 80;
mystic rapture of, 55, 162; on death,
63-65; on love, 13-14, 88; on glory,
107

St. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, ero-
ticism of her mystical marriage,
297”55

354

INDEX

St. Theresa (of Avila), wound of love,
111

Salus. See Restorative kiss

Sappho, and yearning, 92

Savonarola, Girolamo, 3297148

Scaglione, Aldo, 314-315

Scerbo, E., 27ini

Sceve, Maurice, 214

Scheludko, D., 260

Schenke, H. M., 21

Scholem, G., 79, 302US3

Sculpture: kiss in, 4, 250-251, 2747115;

the Cross eroticized in, 2961152
Secundus, Johannes, Busin, 194-196; in-
fluence of, 196, 208, 217-222 passim;
influence of, on Thomas Stanley,
233; influence of, on French poets,
3331116

Seler, Eduard, 273-2741114
Seneca, Hercules Oetaeus, 199
Senses; and the kiss, 1-2, 29, 30, 207,
272115; spiritual, 38, 39, 49, 171,
hierarchy of the, 39, 168,
171, 176, 3231121

Serafino dell'Aquila (Aquilano), 196-
igS, 228

Shakespeare, 231-233
Shekhinah, the, 79-80
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, Epipsychidion,
248-249

Shepherd of Hermas: ambiguity of kiss
in, 30-31; allegory in, 2811148
Shirley, James, 234-233
Sidney, Sir Philip, 228-229
Singleton, Charles S., 262
Snell, Bruno, 92
Socrates, on the kiss, 2801145
Solomon, Odes of, 20
Song of Songs: senses and, 2; "kisses of
his mouth," 12, 52-57, 172-175, 179,
289-290 passim; union of two in
one, 22, 129, 132, 142; erotic imagery
in, 32, 37-38, 40, 49; Christian in-
terpretations of, 42, 71, 87, 257;
Jewish interpretations of, 77-79, 81,
2831164; nuptial symbolism in, 37,
52, 71-73, 87, 2831163, 2871176, 290;
"love as strong as death," 63, 132,
137, 142, 3201110; wound of love, 89,
110, 111; imagery from, in secular
poetry, 97, 104, 105, 108, 114; para-
phrase of, 114, 222; spiritual senses
and, 38-39, 40, 2851168

Sophia (wisdom) : allegory of Christ,
47; the kiss and, 288
Sorplus, le. See Kiss (as promise)

Soul: union with God (kiss as symbol
of), 14-15, 31, 34, 43, 45, 57, 58, 167,
171-172; in Jewish tradition, 78-79
Soul in kiss, 7, 8, 169, 181-188 (see also
Plato, distich on Agathon) ; in Latin
and neo-Latin, 189-196 passim; in
Italian, 170-186 passim, 196-212
passim; Petrarchan, 200-201; paro-
dy of, 202; pun on, 209; in French,
213-226; in English, 227-243; in
Proust, 249; definition of, 330112. See
also Breath

Souls (of lovers) : exchange or migra-
tion of, 5, 41, 158, 161, 162, 177,
182, 192, 238-239, 3091143; mingling
or union of, 6, 26, 27, 33, 130, 131,
132, 191, 214-217; in disembodied
kiss, 238

Spenser, Edmund, 3361142
Spirit. See Breath; Holy Spirit; Soul
Stanley, Thomas, 235-237
Suckling, John, 239
Suso, Henry, 2881188
Swarzenski, Hanns, 115, 116
Swinburne, Algernon, 27211

Tasso, Torquato, 140, 203-206; Rous-
seau and, 246, 339113
Tavola Ritonda e I'istoria di Tristano,
La, 3131117, 3i9n4
Taylor, Henry Osborne, 89
Tertullian, 40

Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrrhus, 46
Thomas (author of French Tristan), 133,

154

Tibullus, 144, 189, 190, 265, 3051112
Tofte, Robert, 230

Trinity, the: in mystic union, 53-54, 58;
as Bridegroom of the Virgin, 72; in
Christian iconography, 253-259; in
mysticism, 292

Tristan and Iseult, 130-133, 141; love-
death of, 137-140; and Inferno V,
148-154; and Zerbino and Isabella,
199; in one tomb, ■}-Ljni 6
Tristano Riccardiano, 5121114
Troubadour poetry, 111 ; Christian ele-
ments in, 260-269, 305111. See also
Courtly love; Fin' Amors
Tullia d'Aragona, 169, 3231121
Two-in-one motif, 4, 21, 23, 57, 59, 60,

355

INDEX

67, 98-99, 161, 182, 211, 236, 248;
in friendship, 59, 60, 61, 99, 177, 178;
in art, 4, 74, 250-251, 3181128; in
kabbalism (law of reintegration),
80, 81, 82, 302H82; in medieval lyr-
ics, 96, 97, 109 ; in love legends, 124,
131, 132, 137, 142, 143, 147, 149, 150;
in later poetry, 195, 211, 223, 236,
248; in one tomb, 3i3ni6. See also
Androgyne

Ulrich of Liechtenstein, 97
Ulrich von Winterstetten, 123, 126, 127
Underhill, Evelyn, 37, 2851170
Union (with God) : eschatological, 31,
33; as cleaving, 44, 53 (see also
Cleaving); in medieval Judaism, 78,
79, 81, 82; as mystic union, 64, 65,
83, 167; kiss as impregnation in, 56,
73; for nuns, 68

Valency, Maurice, 119, 120

Van Marie, Raimond, 74

Van de Velde, Th. H., 272115

Varchi, Benedetto, 199-200, 3231121

Vauquelin, Jean, 223

Virgil, igg; in Inferno V, 142, 143;

Aeneid VI, 144, 3051112
Virgin Mary, the: two-in-one motif, 23;
impregnation by kiss, 70; as Bride,
71, 72; as mother, daughter, and
bride of Son, 73, 2991171

Voiture, Vincent, 223

Von Kempen, Karl-Martin, 271111

Walter von der Vogelweide, 117
Watson, Thomas, 228
Weber, Henri, 3331116
Wechssler, E., 260, 261, 303112
Wilhelm, James J., 106, 107, 109
William of Saint-Thierry : on Song of
Songs, 57-58; on death as ecstasy,
65; on amor, 143; kiss as Incarna-
tion, 290116, 2911122; kiss as revela-
tion of the Father, 2911114; on Holy
Spirit as kiss, 2921124; on yearning,
3041111

Wind, Edgar, 180, 3271159
Wound (of love). See Love, wound of
Wundt, Wilhelm, 5, 6, 2731115
W'yatt, Sir Thomas, 228

Xenophon, on the danger of kisses,
2801145

Yearning, love as: for God, 38, 48,
56, 58, 78, 83, 85-89, 91, 162, 181,
291111114 and 21, 3041111; in secular
love, 85, 92, 93-94/ lou 203, 3071155'
3191150

Zohar, the, 78-83; sex symbolism in,
79,82

Zorzi, D., 260

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